DALLAS _ Southwest Airlines is being fined $200,000 for advertising a fare sale too good to be true.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said Thursday that in TV ads last October the ******* promised flights from Atlanta to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles for just $59 _ but didn’t make any seats available at that price.

The government said that Southwest’s ads were deceptive and violated rules on advertising of ******* fares.

Southwest was also required to pay an extra $100,000 that had been suspended after a similar offence last year.

The Transportation Department said airlines have long known that as part of rules governing fare advertising they must have a “reasonable number” of seats available at the advertised price. In October, Southwest ran ads on eight Atlanta stations in which the narrator told viewers, “Discover amazing low sale fares” of $59 “to places like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.”

The department said it checked and found that Southwest had no seats for $59 to those three cities on any of the travel dates listed in the ad.

Southwest said that it was all a mistake _ that those three cities were never intended to be part of the Atlanta fare sale but wound up in the advertisement after a flawed review of the ad copy.

“As soon as we became aware of our mistake, we pulled all incorrect advertisements off the air,” said spokesman Brad Hawkins.

The ******* said that it honoured the $59 fare to the three cities for consumers who called its reservations centre and asked for that price.

Source: The Associated Press