DOT orders Frontier and other carriers to pay travelers over $600 million in refunds, proposes change in consumer protection laws

The U.S. Department of Transportation said on Monday that it had ordered airlines to refund travelers whose flights were canceled or significantly changed by the airlines.

Among these is Frontier; they were ordered to pay around $220 million in refunds and were fined $2.2 million in fines for the delay in paying out funds to customers. Frontier is not the only airline; the DOT also fined Air India $1.4 million, TAP Portugal $1.1 million, Aeromexico $900,000, El Al $900,000, and Colombian Avianca $750,000. Those airlines paid travelers a combined $400 million in refunds. This is not the first time this has happened; last year, the DOT also fined Air Canada $4.5 million in refund delays; it is important to note, out of these fines, more than half goes to travelers.

The important thing to emphasize here isn’t that the airlines paid out but that they did not want to do so until the DOT took enforcement action. Complaints regarding airline refunds accounted for 60% of the 49,958 complaints in 2021. Because of this, the DOT and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has vowed to change consumer protection laws against airlines; he proposes stricter rules for when travelers are owed refunds.