With holiday travel ramping up, the attorneys general of roughly three dozen states want the U.S. Department of Transportation to compel airlines to only advertise and sell flights that they can adequately staff – and fine the companies that fail to comply.

That’s one of the ideas that Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and 34 other attorneys general asked the federal agency to adopt.

The federal department, which is in the middle of proposing rules for airline ticket refunds and other consumer-related measures, seeks to codify its interpretation that it is an “unfair business practice” for airlines and ticketing agencies to refuse to provide refunds to consumers when a flight is canceled and a customer deems the alternative transportation unacceptable.

In a letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the attorneys general, who included Mark Brnovich from Arizona and Rob Bonta from California, noted that airlines frequently cite inadequate workers as the reason for canceling flights. They insisted that staffing levels “appear to be well within airlines’ ability to reasonably predict and plan flight schedules.”

The federal agency’s proposed rules, they said, includes no provision to “correct this practice and that would prevent airlines from advertising and selling tickets for flights that they cannot reasonably provide.”

“USDOT should make clear that it will impose significant fines for cancellations and extended delays that are not weather-related or otherwise unavoidable. The NPRM imposes no such provision that would provide airlines with an incentive to improve their scheduling and cancellation practices,” they said. 

In a statement, Weiser said his office often hears from Coloradans about airlines over-complicating refunds, failing to adhere to their own cancellation policies and “generally making travel challenging and costly.”

“As many Coloradans are planning to travel during the holidays and looking forward to see loved ones, now is a good time to remind USDOT that it has the opportunity to hold airlines accountable when they mistreat consumers, helping add ease to consumers’ future travel plans and lessen unexpected financial burdens,” he said.

Specifically, the attorneys general want Buttigieg’s office to develop a framework to quickly respond to issues they raise. They said the transportation department must address its past failures to enforce existing protections and do it timely to ensure any new rule will actually benefit consumers.

In addition to compelling the airlines to only sell flights they can sufficiently staff, the attorneys general said the department should conduct regular audits and impose fines on airlines that do not comply; make it clear that it would impose “significant fines” for cancellations and extended delays that are not weather-related or otherwise unavoidable; prohibit airlines from canceling flights and then upselling consumers more expensive alternative flights to the same destination; and, require that credits or vouchers for future travel provided by airlines after a cancellation may be used easily “without inappropriate limitations.”

The transportation agency last month fined Denver-based Frontier Airlines and ordered refunds to consumers who were treated unfairly during the height of the covid-19 pandemic. Weiser, whose office received hundreds of complaints about Frontier, said his office will continue monitoring concerns from consumers. Colorado consumers who did not receive a required refund or were not allowed to use an issued credit for another flight should file a report at StopFraudColorado.gov.

Last month, the transportation agency sanctioned six airlines, which paid more than $600 million in refunds to customers whose flights were canceled or significantly changed. The agency also fined them $7.25 million, including $2.2 million against Denver-based Frontier, which also faced $222 million in required refunds.