Trump Waives Southwest Airlines Fine For Holiday Meltdown

[Passages]

Under former airline lobbyist Sean Duffy, the Transportation Department is rolling back consumer protections for travelers.

Transportation
Dec 6, 2025
Luke Goldstein

Ahead of the holiday season, the Trump administration just let Southwest Airlines off the hook for the remaining government payments of a record-setting $140 million fine brought by the Department of Transportation after the airline’s software meltdown stranded two million customers over Christmas three years ago.

Late on Friday evening, the Department of Transportation posted a notice relieving Southwest from making its final $11 million payment for "significantly improving its on-time performance,” according to the department. The outstanding $11 million was nearly a third of the total $35 million fine that Southwest owed to the government, thirty times larger than any previous Transportation Department penalty for consumer-protection violations.

The rest of the $140 million penalty was either returned directly to customers harmed by the systemwide holiday meltdown in 2022 or set aside by the airline for future compensation to passengers, as mandated by the Transportation Department’s enforcement action.

SNIP*
This move is just the latest rollback of Biden-era enforcement actions by Trump’s pick for Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy, who previously worked as a lobbyist for an airline trade association. In May, the department dropped a lawsuit against Southwest filed by the Biden administration for “chronically delayed flights” in violation of consumer protections and related laws.

https://www.levernews.com/trump-waives-southwest-airlines-fine-for-holiday-meltdown/

[kacekwl]

1. trump is a regular

advocate for the common man. I guess I have to include

[Passages]

2. The Grifter in Chief.

There will be countless books written regarding the money sifted to him once he leaves office.