Senators want airlines to be fined for delaying or canceling flights because of staffing issues

• Senators said airlines should be fined if they delay or cancel flights due to staffing.
• Elizabeth Warren and Alex Padilla told transport chiefs it could issue fines of up to $37,377.

US senators said on Monday that airlines should be fined if they delay or cancel flights because of staffing or operational issues.

Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Alex Padilla wrote a letter to the US Transportation Department (DoT), asking it to help protect the passengers who are impacted by the travel chaos this summer.

"The Department of Transportation has the authority to take meaningful actions to hold airlines accountable for avoidable delays and cancellations," they wrote in the letter.

The senators said that although some delays were "inevitable," pushing back flights for reasons within an airline's control was "an unfair and deceptive practice."

Airlines should be held accountable, Warren and Padilla said. They urged the DoT to impose fines on the carriers that disrupt passengers' journeys and could introduce "more concrete rules" that require airlines to refund passengers with postponed flights.

"For airlines, flight cancellations may just be business as usual," the senators wrote in the letter. "For air travelers and employees, however, they represent huge disruptions to lives and livelihoods."

Warren and Padilla said in the letter that the secretary of the DoT could issue fines of up to $37,377 per violation.

"After receiving tens of billions of dollars in assistance from American taxpayers, major airlines have reciprocated by dramatically increasing ticket prices and reaching new lows in their treatment of travelers," they said in the letter.

The DoT didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

The letter shines a light on the chaos which air passengers across the world have experienced this summer. Some have lost their luggage, others were charged more than $25 to speak to an airline's customer service. One couple told Insider they spent over 20 hours on the phone with Qantas' help line after their baby was booked on a different flight.