Passengers who were late for a flight may now be able to claim back their money.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Monday that it will pay $2.4 million to the company that owned the Gateway Travel agency from 2009 to 2016.
The fine was part of a settlement with the Department of Justice that was part-funded by a $1.1 billion settlement with travelers’ advocates.
The Justice Department said it did not seek the fine because the department has jurisdiction over all the complaints it receives from consumers.
The settlement came as the Trump administration was moving to roll back some regulations designed to prevent airline abuse.
The travel agency was responsible for advising customers of possible problems and was part and parcel of the Department’s $4.2 billion travel package.
The company had been a division of Gateway Travel for almost 20 years, and had been operating for just over a decade before the DOJ announced the settlement.
Gateway Travel also had the responsibility for providing refunds to customers who didn’t pay for their flights.
According to a statement from the Justice Department, the department was aware of a number of instances where Gateway Travel did not notify its clients about potential travel delays, which resulted in delayed flights.
However, it said that it was not aware of any instances in which Gateway Travel’s customers had been improperly charged for flights that had been canceled or delayed by the airline.
The airline had also received multiple complaints about the service from its customers.
For example, a customer said that the agency charged $7,000 to return a canceled flight from a business trip to a vacation.
“Gateway Travel should have known that the money it was sending to the customer would be lost if it did nothing,” said attorney Stephen L. Levenson, who is representing some of the travelers in the lawsuit.
“This settlement ensures that Gateway Travel will be held accountable for not telling its clients that the travel problems they faced were due to travel delays.”
The company has been fined in the past, including $1 million by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority in 2017.
It was also fined in 2016 by the British Transport Police for not reporting suspicious activity to the police, and $2 million by U.k. regulators last year for not disclosing to customers that a flight had been cancelled after it was scheduled to depart from Gatwick airport in the U,K.
The DOJ said it had no knowledge of the problems with Gateway Travel.
In a statement to The Associated Press, Gateway Travel said it was working with the Justice’s Office of the Inspector General to conduct a “full and thorough investigation of the matter.”
It said it has not received any settlements from the department, and was cooperating fully with the investigation.
