Dec. 7 (UPI) — Southwest Airlines will not have to pay the final $11 million portion of a record civil penalty tied to its 2022 holiday meltdown, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Transportation officials in 2023 had fined Southwest some $140 million for “numerous violations of consumer protection laws” when operations failures led to 16,900 cancelled flights during the 2022 Christmas holiday season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Included in that penalty was $35 million that the airline was ordered to pay in three installments to the U.S. Treasury Department. Southwest previously made two $12 million payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump administration credited Southwest for $112 million in operational upgrades that significantly improved its on-time performance and reliability and waived the final $11 million payment<\/a> to the Treasury Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “DOT believes that this approach is in the public interest as it incentivizes airlines to invest in improving their operations and resiliency, which benefits consumers directly,” officials said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This credit structure allows for the benefits of the airline’s investment to be realized by the public, rather than resulting in a government monetary penalty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those penalties had come on top of the $600 million Southwest was ordered to reimburse passengers who faced travel disruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Southwest Airlines is grateful to Secretary Duffy and the DOT Team for recognizing Southwest’s significant investments in modernizing our operations,” the airline said in a statement<\/a> to ABC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “During the last two years, Southwest successfully completed an operational turnaround that directly benefits our Customers with industry-leading on-time performance and percentage of completed flights without cancellations.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n