FAA Levies Two More Fines on Amazon
June 22 2016 - 5:00PM
Dow Jones News
The Federal Aviation Administration said it would fine
Amazon.com Inc. $130,000 for allegedly mishandling shipments of
dangerous chemicals, marking three fines in less than two weeks the
agency has penalized the retailer for violating rules related to
shipping hazardous materials by air.
In May 2014, Amazon shipped two boxes containing multiple
1-gallon jugs of a corrosive rust stain remover from Plainfield,
Ill. to Davenport, Fla. the FAA said. Workers at a FedEx Corp.
sorting facility in Lake Wales, Fla. discovered that the product,
called Rid O' Rust Stain Preventer Acid, had leaked through one of
the cardboard boxes.
The next month, Amazon sent a box containing a 19-ounce
container of Simple Air EZ Green, a flammable gas used to clean
heating and air conditioning systems, by air from Whitestown, Ind.
to Glendale, Calif., the FAA said.
In both cases, the packages containing the product were not
properly marked, labeled, or accompanied by the necessary papers
indicating the hazardous nature of the materials inside, the FAA
said Wednesday. The agency proposed a fine of $78,000 for the May,
2014 incident and $52,000 for the later incident.
An Amazon spokeswoman said the company takes the issue of air
cargo safety seriously and had developed "sophisticated
technologies" to detect shipping hazards in its packages.
The fine comes after the FAA levied a $350,000 fine on Amazon
earlier this month for a similar alleged violation that also
occurred in 2014. In that incident, the FAA says that Amazon failed
to properly package and label a box containing a corrosive drain
cleaner, which leaked during a flight from Louisville, Ky. to
Boulder, Colo. and compelled nine United Postal Service Inc.
employees who had handled the shipment to be treated with a
chemical wash.
The fines come at a time when Amazon is becoming more closely
involved in the logistics of shipping its products, and the FAA is
stepping up enforcement of air cargo safety violations.
Write to Robbie Whelan at robbie.whelan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 22, 2016 16:45 ET (20:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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