FAA Levies Two More Fines on Amazon

By Robbie Whelan 

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 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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.

In response to that fine, Amazon said it takes the issue of air cargo safety very seriously and had developed "sophisticated technologies" to detect shipping hazards in its packages.

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 [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 22, 2016 16:34 ET (20:34 GMT)

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