Spirit Airlines Fined $100,000 for Mishandling Disabilities Complaints

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) today fined Spirit Airlines $100,000 for failing to appropriately record and respond to complaints about the carrier’s treatment of passengers with disabilities.

“Our rules on how airlines handle disability-related complaints are designed to help us ensure that passengers with disabilities are treated fairly when they fly,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.  “We will continue to make sure carriers comply with our disability rules and take enforcement action when they do not.”

Under DOT’s rules, carriers must sort disability-related complaints into categories based on the type of disability and nature of the complaint, and submit an annual report to the Department on disability complaints received the previous year. Each issue raised in a complaint must be recorded separately to account for the total number of complaints a carrier receives. 

The Department compiles carrier reports, publishes them on the Internet for consumers to compare, and submits them as required by Congress.  In addition, if an airline receives a written complaint alleging a violation of the Department’s disability rules, the carrier must provide a written response within 30 days that specifically discusses the complaint, gives the carrier’s view of whether a violation occurred, and states that the complaint may be referred to DOT for an investigation.

In May 2010, the Department’s Aviation Enforcement Office conducted an inspection at Spirit’s corporate headquarters in Miramar, Fla., during which it reviewed disability-related complaints received by Spirit in calendar year 2009.  The Enforcement Office later reviewed disability complaints received by the carrier in calendar year 2010.

The review showed that Spirit violated the Department’s rules by failing to adequately categorize and account for all the disability-related issues that were raised in complaints received during 2009, leading to an undercounting of the actual number of complaints in the carrier’s annual report to DOT. 

Finnair

In another case announced today, DOT assessed a civil penalty of $35,000 against Finnair for violating federal aviation laws prohibiting deceptive price advertising in air travel. 

"Consumers need to trust that what they see is what they get when it comes to purchasing an airline ticket,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.  “DOT will continue to protect consumers by taking enforcement action when our price advertising rules are violated."

For a period of time in the fall of last year, Finnair displayed three fare advertisements on its website that made no mention of additional taxes and fees that applied to these fares.  

Instead, once consumers clicked on the advertisements, they were taken to a page on the carrier’s website where taxes and fees were displayed in the fine print at the bottom of the page.  In one of the three advertisements, consumers could not see the fine print unless they happened to scroll to the bottom of the page.

Finnair’s website violated DOT rules requiring any advertising that includes a price for air transportation to state the full price to be paid by the consumer, including all carrier-imposed surcharges.