JetBlue was hit with a $2 million fine for chronic flight delays

JetBlue Airlines She faces a $2 million fine after a federal government investigation revealed she was “operating several chronically late flights.”

This is the first time the US Department of Transportation (DOT) has penalized an airline for persistently delaying flights. The government criticized the measure as a “prohibited unrealistic scheduling practice that could harm passengers and fair competition across the airline industry.”

The Department of Transportation’s order requires JetBlue to stop chronic flight delays and pay a $2 million fine, half of which will go directly to the U.S. Treasury Department. The other half will be used to compensate passengers affected by chronically delayed flights or any future flight disruptions of three or more hours caused by JetBlue over the next year, the Department of Transportation said in its announcement Friday.

The Department of Transportation said future compensation should be estimated at at least $75 per affected passenger.

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“Today’s action alerts the entire aviation industry that we expect their flight schedules to reflect reality,” US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement on Friday. “The Administration will enforce the law against airlines experiencing chronic delays or other unrealistic scheduling practices in order to protect healthy competition in commercial aviation and ensure that passengers are treated fairly.”

Under DOT rules, flights are considered chronically late if they are flown at least 10 times a month and arrive more than 30 minutes late, more than half the time. The government said cancellations are included as delays in this calculation. Continuously delaying a flight for more than four consecutive months is an issue Scheduling is unrealistic.

After the Ministry of Transport’s investigation, Government officials discovered that JetBlue operated four chronically delayed flights at least 145 times between June 2022 and November 2023. Each of the four flights was persistently delayed for at least five consecutive months, according to the Department of Transportation. In total, there were 395 delays and cancellations across these four chronically delayed flights.

In addition, JetBlue continued to operate three more chronically delayed flights between Florida, New York and Connecticut despite receiving warnings from the Department of Transportation, officials said.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics estimated that the airline was responsible for more than 70% of the disruptions on the four chronically delayed flights based on data provided to the DOT by JetBlue.

tape	protection	last	It changes	% changes
JBLU	JetBlue Airlines	7.48	-0.38	-4.83%

Under DOT rules, airlines are given “adequate time to fix their schedule after a flight is chronically delayed to avoid unlawful unrealistic scheduling.” However, the Department of Transportation said “JetBlue failed to do so.”

However, JetBlue told FOX Business in a statement that it has “invested tens of millions of dollars to reduce flight delays, particularly related to ongoing air traffic control challenges” in its largest markets in the Northeast and Florida over the past two years.

“Through these efforts, we saw significant operational improvements in 2024 including better on-time performance during this year’s peak summer travel season,” the New York-based carrier said.

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The company went on to say that while it has reached a settlement to resolve this matter regarding four flights in 2022 and 2023, the company believes that “accountability for reliable air travel rests equally with the United States government, which operates our nation’s air traffic control system.”

The carrier argued that the incoming administration needs to “prioritize modernizing outdated air traffic control technology” and address “the chronic shortage of air traffic controller staffing to reduce air traffic control delays that affect millions of air travelers each year.”

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But JetBlue is not alone. The Department of Transport stated that it is currently investigating other airlines for “unrealistic flight schedules” as well.

The Department of Transportation considers unrealistic scheduling to be a deceptive and anticompetitive practice because it deprives travelers of reliable scheduling information and “allows airlines to unfairly seize business from competitors by misleading consumers.”