Frontier Airlines and five foreign carriers have agreed to refund more than $600 million combined to travelers whose trips were canceled or significantly delayed since the start of the pandemic, federal officials said Monday.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said it also fined the same airlines more than $7 million for delaying refunds so long that they violated consumer-protection rules.
“When Americans buy a ticket on an airline, we expect to get to our destination safely, reliably and affordably, and our job at DOT is to hold airlines accountable for these expectations,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. Frontier spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz said the Denver-based airline issued nearly $100 million in “goodwill refunds,” including to people with non-refundable tickets who canceled on their own and were not entitled to a refund under federal law.
“We have more enforcement actions and investigations underway and there may be more news to come by way of fines,” Buttigieg said during a call with reporters. That did not satisfy consumer advocates, who said that the major U.S. airlines also violated rules around refunds — even if they took corrective steps more quickly.
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