Cheap Flights of Southwest Airlines

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The U.S. Department of Transportation has fined Southwest Airlines $200,000 for advertising Cheap Flights but not making enough - or in some cases any - seats available.

During its  "Luv a Fare Sale" in January, Southwest Airlines offered one-way tickets on Valentine's Day 2013 for less than $100 out of hundreds of cities, including Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee, Chicago Midway and Minneapolis St. Paul.

But on a significant number of routes, the deal only applied to 1% to 2% of the seats -- about three or four passengers per flight. That's not a "reasonable" number of seats, the federal government said.

Southwest Airlines During another sale, Southwest advertised $66 one-way tickets from Dallas to Branson, Mo., in March, but no seats were available at all.

"By advertising fares for which a reasonable number of seats were not available and advertising fares that were not available at all, Southwest violated the full fare advertising rule and engaged in prohibited unfair and deceptive practices," the DOT said in a news release this week.

Southwest told the DOT that its Luv a Fare Sale was available on 786 routes, and that the fact that none of the $66 fares were available was because of a technical glitch.

"Consumers should be able to trust that the price they see advertised is the price they'll pay for a seat," U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.