Six airlines paid back more than $600 million in refunds to passengers because of major delays or canceled flights, the Transportation Department announced Monday as air travel has seen more disruption amid the pandemic.

The department, which said its enforcement actions on refunds led to hundreds of thousands of flyers getting money back, is also issuing more than $7 million in fines because of “extreme delays in providing refunds,” with some more than 100 days. The Office of Aviation Consumer Protection has now assessed the most civil penalties in a year in its history — and 2022 isn’t over yet.

“This really shouldn’t be happening,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters on a call Monday. “It shouldn’t take enforcement action from the US Department of Transportation to get airlines to pay refunds that they’re required to pay, and so I have asked the team to undertake an exercise to make sure that the fines are calibrated to deter this in the future.”

Frontier in a statement said it issued “goodwill refunds” of nearly $100 million to customers, showing the company’s “commitment to treating our customers with fairness and flexibility.” It added it would pay an additional $1 million after getting a “goodwill refund credit.”

The delayed refunds for Air India mostly occurred during the pandemic when it was still publicly owned, the company said in a statement. Air India, which was privatized in January, said it implemented new systems to expedite refunds and has worked to clear its refund backlog with more than 250,000 cases processed. “We very much regret that customers were inconvenienced and accept the fine,” the company said.

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