Four Airlines May Have Raised Prices to Take Advantage of Amtrak Crash
The government announced Friday that four major airlines—Delta, American, Southwest and JetBlue—may have temporarily raised ticket prices to take advantage of the May Amtrak crash that left eight people dead and hundreds injured.
The crash, which caused major service disruptions on the Northeast corridor, apparently led to a series of consumer complaints alleging that the airlines had been price-gouging, Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Friday.
The Transportation Department reportedly launched the investigation Friday morning by sending official letters “seeking information” to the four airlines.
Foxx told reporters gathered at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast that an “initial review of pricing by those four airlines after the crash gave the administration confidence to move forward with the investigation,” but cautioned conflating correlation with causation.
“We are looking at his from a consumer point of view,” Foxx said. “Yes there is natural shift in prices depending on demand (following a rail shut down.) But the question is, was that beyond the pale? And we will find that out.”
