Southwest Air fined for bogus ads

DALLAS » Southwest Airlines is being fined $200,000 for advertising a fare sale too good to be true.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said last week that in TV ads last October the airline promised flights from Atlanta to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles for just $59 — but didn’t make any seats available at that price.

The government said that Southwest’s ads were deceptive and violated rules on advertising of airline fares. Southwest was also required to pay an extra $100,000 fine that had been suspended after a similar offense last year.

The Transportation Department said airlines have long known that they must have a "reasonable number" of seats available at the advertised price. In October, Southwest ran ads on eight Atlanta TV stations in which the narrator said, "Discover amazing low sale fares" of $59 "to places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago." The department said it checked and found that Southwest had no seats for $59 to those three cities on any of the travel dates listed in the ad.

Southwest said that it was all a mistake — that those three cities were never intended to be part of the Atlanta fare sale but wound up in the advertisement after a flawed review of the ad copy.

Associated Press

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