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Delta and United face steep fines for codesharing, denied-boarding violations

July 9, 2009

deltaIn a surprise move, the Department of Transportation has fined two airlines for failing to disclose codesharing flights and disregarding their denied-boarding rules. United Airlines faces $80,000 in penalties for neglecting to inform travelers that certain flights were operated by another airline. And Delta Air Lines is being fined $375,000 for bumping passengers from its flights without compensation.

Here’s the consent order for Delta (PDF) and United (PDF).

The backstory is interesting.


The Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings staff made a number of phone calls to United’s reservations line in January to determine if the airline’s employees were advising consumers of the code-share status of flights being operated by other carriers. The United reservations agents answering those calls failed to disclose the code-share status of the flights in question during a substantial number of those calls, according to the government.

In Delta’s case, an inspection of the carrier’s passenger complaint records from January to July 2008 and of passenger complaints involving Delta during 2008 sent directly to the Enforcement Office, revealed “numerous instances in which the carrier bumped passengers, but did not follow one or more of the provisions” of its contract of carriage, the legal agreement between Delta and the passenger.

“These failures,” the government notes in its consent order, “constituted unfair and deceptive practices and unfair methods of competition.”

Could this be the beginning of a government crackdown on an airline industry that’s had its way in Washington for eight long years?

Don’t hold your breath. The airlines will pay only a fraction of the penalties — Delta will pay $175,000 and United will pay $40,000 — with the balance to be forgiven as long as they don’t become repeat offenders.

I think we need to see a few more of these fines before I can say we’re at a turning point. But this is a good start.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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12 comments

  • John

    even if they faced the full fine, it’s like getting a 200 dollar speeding ticket to them, 80000 bucks, thats pennys to them, if the fines were 5 million dollars, that would make heads roll.

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  • http://www.ffocus.org Bruce InCharlotte

    Sadly, the government hasn’t gone far enough. They should have required the carrier to reach out to those IDB’s customers and inform them of their rights and supply a voucher for use on ANY airline.

  • Jesse

    John, maybe you haven’t been paying attention, but airlines are losing money. A $175k fine for Delta essentially means they will lose another $175k this year. I assure you heads are already rolling because of these fines.

  • Carl G.

    Ref: “Similar Posts:”
    Re: “Phew! Delta strike averted”
    Dated: April 14, 2006
    WHY include a link to a story that is OVER THREE OLD, OUT OF DATE and TOTALLY IRRELEVANT?

    Are you just so hung up on trying to present only negative comments about the travel business that you have to dig up stuff like this?

    As far as Delta not indicating code sharing, I’m rather surprised. I book almost all of my flights via Delta.Com. For at least the last several years, there has always been a note under the flight number such as ‘Operated by Delta Connection carrier Comair.’ Granted, I have not read the entire case, nor the consent order. But what does ‘Code Share’ have to do with bumping? If you are going to report something like this, at least be thorough and complete in describing the problem.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @Carl, sometimes it seems that way, but in truth, the airlines have done this to themselves. I have a WordPress plug-in that automatically pulls the most relevant posts. Dates are clearly disclosed at the top of the post. There was no intent to add insult to injury.

  • James Hammett

    I remember once google adwords added links to “Find inexpensive and used Flight Attendants” onto one of Christopher’s pages.

  • Drew

    @Carl:
    It doesn’t say that Delta misidentified code-share flights… it says that they bumped folks without compensation. I agree completely with you about Delta–I’ve _always_ seen the “Operated by xxx Airline” on their website, even if I didn’t book on Delta.com (I always go in to check on my upgrades and seat assignments).

    United not indicating code-share flights? This is iffy to me, since I’ve seen in the past on their website that all flight numbers in certain sequences are operated by different carriers… But who knows.

  • Wm Hope

    I agree that, on airlines’ own and on aggregated sites, e.g. Orbitz, the codeshare info these days is ordinarily evident somewhere if one looks for it, and there are often icons to indicate the same so you’ll be warned to look for the info (tho’ icons aren’t standard from site to site). However, if you aren’t online, say you are paying the inane “service” charges to buy at airport, or over phone, do you get the info? I’m a bit dubious abt that.

  • Don

    People if we are going to comment on the article written atleast read it through. It stated that United didn’t disclose the codeshare when the enforcement department called the reservation line.

    “The Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings staff made a number of phone calls to United’s reservations line in January to determine if the airline’s employees were advising consumers of the code-share status of flights being operated by other carriers. The United reservations agents answering those calls failed to disclose the code-share status of the flights in question during a substantial number of those calls, according to the government.”

  • Marcus

    Something needs to be done to get these airlines’ attention.

    Continental’s episode earlier this week with the babies trapped on the plane overnight without provision for food or water, and confined in a highly disease-prone environment (with the overfilled toilet), sounds like negligent child abuse–if not worse. Even negligent child abuse is a pretty serious crime, and I don’t see why no one is talking about it.

    Forget the piddly fines. An indictment or two might really set a different tone when it comes to passenger service.

    M.

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