WASHINGTON, March 21 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of

Transportation (USDOT) is opening a review of how the 10 largest

U.S. airlines collect, handle and use the personal information

of passengers.

The review will look at air carriers' policies and

procedures to determine if they are properly safeguarding

personal information, unfairly or deceptively monetizing that

data, or sharing it with third parties, USDOT said Thursday.

USDOT's Office of Aviation Consumer Protection will conduct

privacy reviews of Allegiant, Alaska , American

, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian,

JetBlue ( JBLU ), Southwest ( LUV ), Spirit, and United

.

USDOT sent letters to the carriers asking about policies on

passenger personal information, details of complaints alleging

airline employees mishandled personal information, and required

employee privacy training.

"Airline passengers should have confidence that their

personal information is not being shared improperly with third

parties or mishandled by employees," Transportation Secretary

Pete Buttigieg said.

USDOT said if it finds evidence of problematic privacy

practices the department could open formal investigations, take

enforcement actions, issue industry guidance or adopt new rules.

Airlines for America, an industry group, said air carriers

"take customers' personal information security very seriously,

which is why they have robust policies, programs and

cybersecurity infrastructure to protect consumers' privacy."

Major U.S. airlines have spent $36.6 billion on IT systems

since 2018, including $7.4 billion in 2023, the airline group

said.

Buttigieg said the department is working on the review with

Senator Ron Wyden, who has long advocated for consumer privacy.

"Because consumers will often never know that their personal

data was misused or sold to shady data brokers, effective

privacy regulation cannot depend on consumer complaints to

identify corporate abuses," Wyden said in a statement.

Mishandling consumers' private information may be considered

an unfair or deceptive practice by airlines and can result in

civil penalties, USDOT said.

USDOT said in December it was scrutinizing the frequent

flyer programs of major U.S. airlines for potential deceptive or

unfair practices, the agency said as regulators step up

oversight of the airline industry.