Summary
The US Department of Transportation fined JetBlue $2 million for operating “chronically delayed flights,” marking the first penalty of its kind.
The DOT found four routes repeatedly delayed for at least five consecutive months between June 2022 and November 2023, despite prior warnings.
JetBlue cited investments in reducing delays, which improved performance in 2024, but faced setbacks like abandoned routes and customer dissatisfaction.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg warned airlines to align schedules with reality, emphasizing the need for reliable travel for passengers.
$2M fine on a company with $9B revenue. That’s pocket change and just the cost of business at this point…
Revenue, yes. But they aren’t actually making much by airline standards. It still isn’t “a lot” for them, but as one of the smaller airlines in of of the few areas left that actually has more than just a few companies in competition with each other, it wouldn’t really be in the publics best interest to fine the hell out of them unless the 2 million doesn’t get them to change their ways. If the problem gets fixed, sweet. If not, give em a bigger punishment.
Narrator: But they didn’t, and nothing changed. /s
Wouldn’t be surprised if JetBlue paid a $1 million bribe to Trump’s ‘inaugural’ fund to keep the regulation unenforced, in the unlikely event that it would even be pursued by the incoming administration in the first place…
A fine is a monetary punishment, it’s supposed to hurt you. It should be a percentage of revenue or similar, not a fixed amount. That’s less than a slap on the wrist right there.
If you’re going to spout off things like they’re facts, at least know the differences between revenue and profit. If you say you do know the difference, then it makes your comment here seem pretty dumb. Also, why are you speaking as though this fine was a fixed amount? What gave you that idea?
That much, lol.
Betcha they save more than that by delaying flights
Why would they intentionally delay flights?
Off the top of my head I’d say:
- Juggling crew rest / staffing requirements.
- Holding half-full planes until passengers with “impossible transit times” arrive from another flight of theirs.
More due to negligence than by design.
They overbook more flights than they can actually handle knowing that there will be delays for the tickets they sell so that they can sell more.
He means they would save more than $2 million by keeping the system the way it is.
They probably leave very narrow error margins in order to maximise profits by maximising the number of flights they can handle.
2m sounds like pocket change for a company of this size.
by maximising the number of flights they can handle.
But they aren’t handling it. That’s the problem.
They don’t, exactly, but if they understaff and operate with no wiggle room in their schedules, any small problems rapidly become large problems.
I guess our national airline - worst in rankings - will kill its US routes before they become non-profit.
