The Transportation Department has hit Spirit Airways with a record $375,000 fine for failing to comply with rules governing denied boarding compensation, fare advertising, baggage liability and other consumer protection requirements, the agency announced this morning.
In a prepared statement, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood suggested his agency was taking a hard line when it comes to these types of violations. “We will continue to take enforcement action when airlines violate our rules,” he said, adding that consumer protections were an “important part” of the department’s mission.
This is a positive development for consumers, many of whom feel the DOT had failed to protect passengers in the past. (I’ve also been critical of the agency, but on reflection — and in light of today’s fine — I believe it may be more a question of adequate resources than a desire to help consumers.)
What did Spirit do to deserve such a big fine?
• The Department’s Aviation Enforcement Office found that Spirit bumped passengers from oversold flights but did not provide compensation or a written notice of their rights to compensation, as required by DOT rules.
• The investigation also revealed that Spirit failed to resolve baggage claims within a reasonable period, on one occasion taking 14 months to provide compensation.
• Spirit also was found to violate DOT rules by providing compensation for delayed baggage only for the outbound leg of round-trip flights and only for purchases made more than 24 hours after arrival.
• In addition, Spirit violated baggage liability laws governing international travel by refusing to accept responsibility for missing laptop computers and certain other items it accepted as baggage.
• Spirit also violated DOT rules requiring airfare ads to state the full price to be paid by omitting carrier-imposed fees from the base fare.
• It also failed to make available on request a copy of the Department’s rule prohibiting discrimination against disabled passengers.
• The Aviation Enforcement Office also cited Spirit for referring to DOT and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations when responding to consumer complaints even though the complaints did not concern DOT or FAA rules.
• Spirit also violated DOT rules by failing to retain copies of consumer complaints and by failing to file required reports in a timely manner.
In other words, Spirit has been very, very bad.
The DOT promises it will conduct a follow-up investigation of Spirit during the coming year.
(Photo: vnvlain/Flickr Creative Commons)
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A $375,000 fine is being tough? I’d suggest that’s just small change compared to the gross revenue turnover or the net profit Spirit makes. Fines should be a percentage of last years profits plus a set amount so that non-profitable carriers still get dinged but larger ones get dinged more.
The downside though is that airlines will see this as another cost of doing business, and add more fees to the ticket prices to cover these additional fines.
Maybe airlines should be required to suspend senior management responsible for these fines, or at least have to pay fines themselves. If it’s going to hit the VP in the pocket, he’s less likely to want the rules broken.
The fines against Spirit and, in June, Delta and United are hardly enough to dissuade them from doing what they do: in fact, they are so slight that they may encourage them to keep up the good (for the bottom line) work!
I think these airline fines are a good start, but the amounts are chump change to these carriers. They will only start paying closer attention when the fines really hurt the bottom line.
What’s really the problem, as David H noted, is that a truly significant fine would just cause the airline to turn around and pass that “expense” on to the traveling public. You don’t believe that they will actually take it out of their profits, do you? Even if you make the CEO pay it “out of pocket”, what’s to stop the airline from increasing his yearly bonus to compesate?
It’s a pretty safe bet that Spirit weighed the profit from non-compliance against the possible fine and concluded that they would come out ahead. As said before, only a really stiff penalty is going to get Spirit and other offenders to obey the rules.
What I find offensive is that the airlines are fined for not informing passengers of some trivial issues such as baggage liability and not making documentation readily available, yet *NOBODY* gets in trouble for passengers sitting on planes on the runway for 7 hours…What’s wrong with this picture folks!
Ed
What’s a few hundred thou when you can up the baggage fees.
What we need is a DOT that cares about the passenger and will implement a standard set of rules all airlines will have to adhere to and then enforcement to make sure they do! And fines are not enough. If the airlines are abusing their “monopolies” on certain routes, the DOT should encourage a competitor to fly the same route. Let the better service win!
This is the very least the DOT should have socked Spirit with. I have personally been on the receiving end of at least 6 of the infractions that the DOT is fining them for. I hope that my complaints to the DOT are part of the reason this fine was inflicted.
I’ve tried numerous times to get a response from Spirit about a concern using a very calm, concise and direct letter to no avail. Their complete lack of respect for the customer is finally coming back to them. I forwarded my concerns to the DOT as I could not stand idly by and be ignored by the airline.
However, I got the best resolution to my problems. I simply will not fly them any longer. I don’t care how much money I can “save”, it is not worth the hassle of dealing with their non-existent customer service department, the constantly canceled flights (with NO compensation), the inability to speak with an agent when the website doesn’t work, the inability to purchase a ticket online if you uncheck the insurance box, and the price to replace all of the luggage that they ruin and blame on me.
Flying Delta/Northwest in/out of Detroit has been far more pleasant, reliable, convenient and cheaper. Yes, cheaper.
I can only hope the DOT continues to look into this airline and keep up the fines for such utter disregard for the laws of the land & air.
The fine is the equivalent to an ordinary citizen getting a $20.00 parking fine. I doubt Spirit Airline will even notice the chub change missing from their pocket. It is obvious that they certainly don’t care about the bad publicity either.
This couldn’t happen to a better airline.
I have such distain for Spirit Air.
They will never get my business. The way they treat their customer is not only bordering on criminal, but their policies are so bizarre the airline themselves don’t know what to make of it.
The India call center can’t answer a basic question, either out of incompetence or they really don’t know the answer to the most basic questions
I feel the travel industry as a whole would sleep much better if Spirit Air went belly up.
Spirit made more than 36 million so far this year which is remarkable. Very few have generated positive numbers. The fine is nothing more than the cost of doing business. Spirit’s management is clever and know what they are doing…
I have tried to stop Spirit from renewing my membership, to no avail. Can not reach a live rep. I will have to wait for them to renew and then I will have to contact my credit card co. They should be put out of buisness.