DOT Fines JetBlue For Chronic Delays While FAA’s Failures Go Unpunished

The Department of Transportation has gotten JetBlue to agree to a $2 million fine over chronically delayed flights. However they won’t actually pay $2 million, they’ll pay just $1 million. The rest won’t even go to customers on the flights they’re being fined for. Instead, they promise to offer $75 travel vouchers for future delays of 3 hours or more (and to be useful, you need to buy a new ticket from JetBlue!).

The real win here for DOT is getting JetBlue to agree to delay compensation, because that’s been something the Biden administration was unable to advance over the past four years (and is probably illegal to order as a regulation, with Congressional action). They want an EU261-style rule and haven’t gotten it, but this is something.

What’s strange though, as Enilria points out, is that DOT is fining JetBlue for delayed flights to, from or through New York airspace where the government’s own air traffic control has been unable to properly staff and as a result has contributed significantly to delays.

  • DOT is complaining about “four chronically delayed flights at least 145 times between June 2022 through November 2023” not the entirety of JetBlue’s operation which underperforms competitors. The airline operates around 1,000 daily flights.

  • They argue that operating an ‘unrealistic schedule’ is deceptive and therefore illegal, but it’s unrealistic in quite some measure because of FAA air traffic control failures. The government isn’t fining itself. And FAA and DOT have continually promised fixes. The schedules were unrealistic because JetBlue believed the government.

JetBlue is in the process of overhauling its business. It’s doing this because the airline hasn’t been making money. They do know they need improved reliability for customers to choose them, and especially if they want customers to do so at a premium price. $1 – 2 million is immaterial in this calculation, and customers have been way out ahead of the government on this.

Ironically, JetBlue is being forced to write a check for its failures, even where it shares blame, while airlines are lobbying to get more money to the FAA as a result of its failures. Currently there’s very little push to address FAA’s chronic failures in procurement, IT project management, and leadership throughout the org chart.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Hopefully DOGE is targeted at the DOT and FAA. Lots of incompetence and many need to lose their jobs.

  2. I feel like a broken record saying this yet again:

    We need better passenger protections like EU261, UK261, and Canada’s APPR, because until we actually stand up for better conditions, we, the passengers, are going to keep getting screwed, and have little recourse or recovery.

    The best incentive to get airlines to keep their schedules is for the airlines to compensate us, the passengers, when the airline is at fault (maintenance, staffing, gross incompetence, etc.) for their excessive delays.

    Remember, we pay a premium for specific flights, dates, times, class of service, etc. Why should we then be 3+ hours late? Time is valuable.

    I expect the corporate shills out there to bootlick the oligarchs and carry water for the airline lobby… But you folks are (plane) wrong. Such rules do not bankrupt airlines, nor do they pass any meaningful additional costs to consumers. The opposite is true: we get paid when they mess up.

    And in case anyone dares to go there, no, travel insurance is not enough to protect us. Most of policies only pay out if the delay is like 72 hours or 50% of your trip. Read that fine print, son.

    Anyway, where we’re headed as a country is not consumer-friendly, so it’s all for naught.

  3. Typical US government hypocrisy.

    Government keeps talking about making Southwest Airlines compensate inconvenienced passengers for its Dec 2022 meltdown. Did anyone hear anything from Transportation Secretary about any compensation when an FAA glitch in Jan 2023 caused all flights to be cancelled for hours?

  4. not only are the big 3 European airlines less reliable than the big 3 US airlines which is roughly equivalent to the most delayed airports but Air Canada’s on-time percentage is worse than US airlines so the whole privatizing ATC argument doesn’t work.

    ATC in the US needs to be fixed but airlines have to work w/ the system they have. Other airlines operate the same routes as B6 with better on-time.

    It takes extra resources – aircraft, crew and ground staff/gates – to stop the cascading effect of delays. B6 in the past was not willing to make that investment and its poor on-time performance has hurt B6 financially and helped its competitors.

    On the other hand, being less delayed means that more flights will arrive early which costs money for the airlines.

    B6 is still in the rebuilding phase. Whether the DOT under the next administration does similar stuff, other airlines in the US have been put on notice that the DOT could do the same thing to them as the DOT has done to B6 IF they don’t address chronic operational problems.

  5. What’s also at play is unrealistic turn times and no period during the day in which an a/c has a longer sit allowing for catch up. Hence, delays just cascade throughout the day. Ultimately it was probably cheaper for JetBlue to pay the $2 million fine than to increase turn times and/or have less aircraft utilization.

  6. @Gary Leff

    When comparing reliability between U.S. and European carriers, Cirium’s On-Time Review 2024 had Delta (US) at 83.46%, Iberia (EU) at 81.58%, SAS (EU) at 81.40%, United (US) at 80.93%. So, that’s at least two large European carriers more reliable than a major U.S. carrier.

    Passengers deserve a baseline, standardized compensation scheme for when flights are significantly delayed by the airline. Clearly, if airlines lose money by being late, then they will strive to not be late, or eventually fail, as the ‘free market’ does. At the very least, passengers are compensated for their lost time. That’s what the EU, UK, and Canada do. We could do that in the US, too, but instead, we’re too beholden to special interests, lobbyists, etc. There is a better way.

  7. Booty boy is incompetent and has no idea what hes doing. Thankfully, the adults take over in three weeks.

  8. @Tim Dunn

    Even if ATC was fully-staffed, modernized, and as ‘efficient’ as possible, there remains the ‘physics’ problem of their not being enough literal air space to safely sequence flight paths for all the current aircraft in overcrowded regions, during the busiest times, such as NYC, where jetBlue is headquartered and operates a majority of its flights, so it disproportionately faces this issue.

    For these high-traffic markets, the solution is to offer less flights overall to ensure the flights that do operate do so punctually. Then, airlines can make up the difference in supply by operating less narrow-bodies (50-150), and more wide-bodies (+300 per flight). That’s what they do in parts of East Asia (think Singapore, JAL, ANA) and the Middle East (think Emirates, Qatar, etc.). It is undeniable that those markets operate more punctually. In Japan, they literally apologize profusely over the loud speaker if a flight is delayed 5 minutes. One can dream.

  9. The constant defenses of this overflowing toilet of an airline are disgusting. They did the crime, they pay the fine. If there was truly any justice, B6 would be shut down immediately, and I’ll drink the sweet, sweet tears of the Neanderthals of New York and Boston as they cry for losing their hometown airline.

  10. I’ve taken maybe 75 flights within Europe (not coming or going to the USA). The longest delay we’ve experienced was a little over an hour on a Ryan Air flight. I don’t recall any other delay of more than 20 minutes. We normally fly budget airlines within Europe. Maybe they are on time more often than Air France, British Airways, and other large carriers because our experience with delays and cancellations has been much better there than at home.

  11. 1990
    first, DAL and UAL are multiples of times larger than the EU airlines you mentioned. DAL and UAL are larger than the largest EU airlines.
    The US, despite the problems, has pretty good reliability compared to many parts of the world.

    Singapore and the UAE don’t have the weather problems that the US NE has.

    yes, you could move traffic more efficiently on larger aircraft but US hubs are far larger in terms of number of flights than the hubs you mention. The US has a massive domestic market that US airlines have to serve because there is no rail as there is in other countries.

    and specific to NYC, B6′ average aircraft size is comparable to the big 3 in NYC; they don’t have the regional jets that the big 3 have but the big 3 operate alot of widebodies so the average aircraft size is not much different.

  12. I have been happy flying on JetBlue for a number of years. I think I have had only one delay for more than three hours and I got a voucher that I used the next time I flew on on JetBlue which covered most of the flight cost. Most of the flights have been nonstop cross country flights.

  13. I’d be interested to see a comparison with EU carriers for *severe* delays, not just on time performance. The issue with the on time metric, is it allows the airlines to make the easy trade off of delaying already delayed flights more versus having to balance delaying more passengers with delaying fewer passengers for a longer time. Airlines should be measures in average minutes of delay per passenger.

  14. @Tim Dunn

    Well, at least we agree on larger aircraft between hubs. I know jetBlue’s largest is the a321, so that doesn’t help them much.

    I still think a major issue here for passengers is that they deserve compensation when airlines are at fault for significant delays, like 3+ hours late. A couple hundred bucks for your trouble would go along way to making this better for the traveling public. And, maybe, it would encourage the airlines, ATC, and any other parties to fix it, too.

    Not sure weather is the constraint either. Everywhere has bad conditions at times. While the NE in the US gets snow in winter (and bad thunderstorms often in August), Singapore regularly experiences intense thunderstorms throughout the year, sometimes causing extreme turbulence that can injure or even kill passengers (see SQ321 from May 2024), and the Middle East gets dust storms and occasional rocket fire. Japan gets typhoons. Sure, sometimes they cancel, but that’s a rarity. In the US, it seems like airlines delay with impunity.

    Ironically, the NE is one of the very few regions in our country with reasonable rail options, between Amtrak, Metro North, LIRR, NJ Transit, etc., the NYC area, which is most at issue with the jetBlue hub at JFK (and LGA, EWR). I, too, wish that we had true high speed rail, like an American Shinkansen, but my goodness, that is not the direction we are headed as a country right now. The best case it seems is a bunch of little private versions like what the Brightline has done in SE Florida.

  15. $35 for everyone affected is a nice, if small start. It’s great to see the government spending taxpayer money to protect taxpayers (for a change).

    The FAA budget has been cut repeatedly. You get what you pay for. And it has ZERO, nothing to do with publishing realistic schedules

  16. 1990,
    NYC-S. FL is over 1000 miles by air; even longer by ground. There are very few high speed routes in the world that are that long. Japan has a large amount of domestic flights even between cities that are a fraction of the distance between NYC and S. Florida.

    No European country is more than 1000 from one end to the other and rail is very poorly integrated between European countries. The US is more than twice as wide as the distance from NYC to S. Florida.

    the biggest hindrance to using larger aircraft is the perimeter rules at LGA and DCA. It isn’t a surprise that the average aircraft size at those airports is well below the average aircraft size at other airports.

    There is no rocket fire in the UAE or Qatar.

    The SQ turbulence incident happened at cruise altitude hundreds of miles from Singapore.

    The DOT is likely right in principle that airlines cannot continue to publish schedules for flights that are chronically late but the result is simply that flight times are far longer than they were in the past. Flights aren’t getting to their destination any faster; airlines are simply not promising an arrival that they cannot reasonably deliver.
    and that extra “flight” time costs airlines because crews are paid for the scheduled flight time or longer

  17. @Tim Dunn “the biggest hindrance to using larger aircraft is the perimeter rules at LGA and DCA” well, runway length… you’re not gonna schedule fully loaded widebodies on 7,000 foot runways.

  18. good morning, Gary.
    the problem with the perimeter rules is the high percentage of regional jets that airlines use because they are not about to let go of valuable slots.

    LGA and DCA both regularly handle 737-800/MAX8 and A320 (150-160 seat aircraft) operating across the entire US.
    The runways at LGA are capable of supporting widebodies and many airlines used them; DL was the last major airline that regularly scheduled widebodies at LGA and has also used 767s at DCA. The runways can handle widebodies but doing so requires different taxiway handling and less volume.

    DL got rid of 50 seat regional jets not just systemwide but started it at LGA as justification for why it could use the slots it gained from the swap with US more efficiently than US had used them.

    LGA and DCA have the highest percentage of regional jets of any AA or DL hub. The runways are not the reason for such low average aircraft sizes; the perimeter restriction explains the high frequency/small aircraft size to many markets and the lack of service to 1/3 or more of the US on a geographic basis

  19. @Tim Dunn that’s true but you’re not going to see significant *widebody* operations on those runways, though I certainly remember 767s at LaGuardia.

    On April 16, 1998, a United Airlines DC-10 made news with an emergency landing at DCA, with bad weather at both BWI and IAD. It made it, and took off with no passengers and light fuel due to the short main runway.

    Delta’s 767 operations were limited at DCA. If memory serves they actually operated a *proving run* for this in 2008. They did run 767s ATL-DCA, for instance, during the Obama inauguration.

    But that airlines squat slots is somewhat beside the point. [And there are also some slots reserved for small city service, typically operated with regional jets.)

  20. @Tim Dunn

    Once again, we do not agree on much, but at least we do agree that the airlines, like any decent business, should not over-promise and under-deliver. These days I cannot have any lower expectations while traveling domestic in the US.

    My point has been that the traveling public, especially those traveling for business, deserves reliability, punctuality, and clear expectations, and that when the airlines significantly fail to keep schedule (like several hours late), those passengers should be compensated.

    I think the EU, UK, and Canadian rules are a good start. Why wouldn’t you want a couple hundred bucks when the airline wastes 3+ hours of your time.

    Unfortunately, I recognize that we are unlikely to see such legislation in the US anytime soon.

  21. Gary,
    widebody operations are not the issue. WN’s hubs all have much higher average seats per departure than LGA and DCA because WN does not use regional jets; they also do not have widebodies.
    I’m not sure that any widebodies have ever been scheduled at MDW since ORD opened and there are at best a handful of widebodies at BWI now.

    1990’s point is valid that NE airspace could be more efficiently used if there were larger aircraft. The reason why there are so many regional jets esp. at LGA and DCA is that airlines cannot sustain mainline service – even DL 717s or A220s – on as many flights as they currently fly because all mainline operations is too much capacity.

    1990.
    we agree on alot more than you think.
    Airlines deliver a service. If the job is completed, you generally don’t get your money back. Airlines do have the requirement to give your money back if they screw up to the point that you cannot reasonably get you where you want to go in a timely matter.
    They also have to take care of you if their delay goes beyond the limits of when your body needs food or sleep beyond the scheduled time of the flight.

    Airlines in Europe aren’t even required to give you a large portion of your money back if you choose to complete the journey with them.

    The DOT is taking the approach of punishing companies that consistently fail to deliver what they say they will deliver.

  22. @Tim Dunn “widebody operations are not the issue”

    I mentioned this because you wrote ““the biggest hindrance to using larger aircraft is the perimeter rules at LGA and DCA”

  23. larger aircraft does not mean widebodies.
    It means a higher percentage of mainline vs. regional jet aircraft.

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