DOT said Southwest advertised one-way, nonstop fares “for $100 or less” for travel on Feb. 14, but “failed to include a reasonable number of seats available in a significant number of city-pair markets in the fare sale.” The DOT generally requires that 10% of an airline’s seats in inventory be available at sale prices, though not all flights need to have seats available at the advertised fare.
Southwest responded to the DOT saying that the “Luv a Fare’’ sale “was very beneficial to consumers’’ and that sale fares in many markets didn’t even sell out.
DOT also found that on Jan. 30, Southwest advertised $66 one-way fares from Dallas Love Field to Branson, Mo., for travel between March 1 and March 21. The agency said its investigation showed, however, that there were no seats available at the sale fare on any day during the sale period.
A spokesman for Southwest said that problem resulted from computer problems with its DING! offer. “These were temporary and unintentional circumstances that were aggravated by a technical glitch in our inventory and sales systems,’’ spokesman Brad Hawkins said.
“We’ve worked with the DOT to address their concerns and have corrected the issues internally to prevent this from happening again.’
(Scott McCartney - The Wall Street Journal)
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