AP
The U.S. government fined American Airlines $4.1 million for dozens of cases in which passengers were kept on board planes without the possibility of leaving during long ground delays.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said Monday that this is the largest fine of its kind against an airline since the rules on ground delays went into effect nearly a decade ago.
According to the department, its investigation revealed that from 2018 to 2021, American Airlines grounded 43 domestic flights for at least three hours without giving passengers (5,821 in total) the opportunity to deplane. There are exceptions where airlines can violate the rules, including for safety reasons, but the department noted that none of those were factors in the flights it identified.
American Airlines must pay half of the fine within the next 30 days, while the department gave the airline a credit for the other half, just over $2 million, for the compensation it paid to delayed passengers.
“This is the latest step in our ongoing effort to enforce airline passenger rights,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who vowed to hold airlines accountable under consumer protection laws.
Most of the delays occurred at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where American is the dominant airline, and others occurred in San Antonio and Houston when flights bound for Dallas were diverted to their airports. Many were reported during thunderstorms.
The airline was particularly opposed to the delays at Washington's Reagan National Airport during a winter storm in January 2019, but accepted the scheme of the agreement in the consent order.
