Airlines to get reprieve from steep consumer protection fines

The Trump administration is poised to relax fines on airlines that violate consumer protections, a move aimed at further reducing the regulatory burden imposed during the Biden era.

The Transportation Department’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection filed notice Monday that it planned to “de-prioritize” certain actions to enforce regulations.

For airline passengers, the revisions mean fewer fines for airlines that fail to adhere to consumer protections, such as those related to airline seating, delayed or canceled flights, and lost luggage.

Instead, the department plans to issue warnings and work to correct the violations, which will likely spare the airlines from having to pay millions of dollars in civil penalties.

A Transportation Department spokesperson told The Washington Times that the updated regulation “will shift toward preventing violations before they occur to create a better experience for travelers.”

When violations occur, the spokesperson said, “the goal is to make sure consumers get the money or help they are owed as quickly as possible.”

Consumer advocates warned that lifting government fines could undermine the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s stepped-up regulations on the commercial airline industry, which proponents say have compelled airlines to improve their services.

Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights, which advocates for airline passengers, said the plan to pull back on fines “could be a sneaky way of repealing an unspecified number of aviation consumer protection regulations through non-enforcement.”

Biden Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg implemented numerous requirements, including a guarantee that families can sit together without paying extra, required travel credits for sick passengers, and special rules for passengers using wheelchairs.

He railed against the Trump administration for canceling a rule proposed during the Biden administration that would have aligned the United States with the European Union by requiring airlines to compensate passengers hundreds of dollars for significant delays.

“One thing I am really pissed about right now is that Trump’s Department of Transportation is dismantling that,” Mr. Buttigieg said in an October podcast.

The Biden administration levied steep government fines on airlines when mass cancellations left passengers stranded.

In December 2023, the Transportation Department issued a historic $140 million civil penalty against Southwest Airlines for violating consumer protection laws because of significant flight delays during the 2022 Christmas holiday period. In October 2024, the department issued a $50 million penalty against American Airlines for “numerous serious violations of the laws protecting airline passengers with disabilities.”

The department cited cases of “unsafe physical assistance” that resulted in injuries, “undignified treatment of wheelchair users” and a lack of wheelchair assistance.

Mr. Buttigieg, a possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, justified the big fines by telling Skift Travel News that smaller fines had failed to change airlines’ behavior.

“We knew the enforcement practice needed to change, which is why we, in some cases, added a zero or two,” he said.

The Trump administration is shifting its focus away from fines. In December, it waived the final $11 million payment Southwest owed for the 2022 delays.

The Transportation Department spokesperson said the Biden-era penalties had no effect on reducing costs for the flying public.

“Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg created an illegitimate and burdensome bureaucracy of the skies to score political points, jacking up ticket prices and ignoring the fundamental problems with air travel in the meantime,” the spokesperson said. “This approach wasn’t just an abuse of congressional authority; it was also backwards. By focusing on fines that only go to the U.S. Treasury, Biden and Buttigieg enriched government coffers, not civilian travelers.”

Deregulation is among Mr. Trump’s top domestic priorities. Mr. Trump and other Republicans blame the Biden-era regulatory frenzy for rising costs and job losses.

According to estimates from the Office of Management and Budget, Mr. Buttigieg nearly tripled the transportation-related rules and regulations during his tenure heading the department.

“The Biden-Buttigieg philosophy was that airlines were ripping off passengers and gobbling up profits. But the truth is the opposite: Airline fares have remained reasonably low compared to the rapid inflation in food, energy and housing costs,” said Stephen Moore, a former senior visiting fellow in economics at The Heritage Foundation.

In September, Airlines for America, a lobbying group representing the major airlines, seized on Mr. Trump’s anti-regulatory approach and sent the Transportation Department a list of Biden-era rules it hopes the government will abolish.

Executives called the Biden-era ancillary fee transparency rule, which requires disclosure of extra fees the airlines charge, a regulatory overreach.

The rule is meant to protect passengers from surprise fees for checked bags, changing a reservation and other services, but Airlines for America said it exceeds the Transportation Department’s legal authority.

The lobbying group said airlines have lowered costs because of decades of deregulation. The group accused the Biden and Obama administrations of implementing an “activist agenda” that has “stifled innovation, capitalism and efficiency, raised prices for consumers and inhibited consumers’ ability to choose an airline with their wallets — the American way.”

In 2024, the Democratic-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee issued a report that found that five airlines, American, Delta, United, Frontier and Spirit, generated $12.4 billion in revenue from seat fees alone.

The airlines charged passengers extra for additional legroom, aisle and window seats, as well as for selecting a seat in advance and for ensuring that parents and children are seated together.

The report found that airlines are increasingly charging fees for services that were previously included in the ticket price.