That “activist” Transportation Department of ours is making news again.

The FAA wants us to know that it has proposed a nearly $2.5 million civil penalty against American Eagle Airlines for allegedly operating flights without ensuring that “the weight of the baggage was properly calculated” (the problem has since been corrected).

Specifically, the FAA says that on more than 100 of the airline’s flights, the baggage weight listed on its “cargo load sheets” allegedly differed from data entered into the company’s Electronic Weight and Balance System. If the wrong data is put in the EWBS, it could result in “incorrect computation of the weight and balance of a particular aircraft” and that could ultimately lead to “faulty calculations for the proper control settings and reference speeds necessary for safe takeoffs and landings.”

Doesn’t sound good.

And this sounds even worse: again, according to the FAA – once the situation was brought to the attention of American Eagle, the airline allegedly operated dozens more flights before correcting the problem.

UPDATE: American Eagle says the civil penalties are “excessive and inappropriate”; a spokesman stressed the airline’s strong commitment to safety and added, in part:

“The vast majority of the discrepancies cited by the FAA involved baggage handlers not reflecting on a paper document the addition of late arriving bags or valet bags – which were accurately recorded in the electronic system on which all flight and operating calculations are based. American Eagle is confident that our employees loaded the flights in question safely and that the data input into the electronic weight and balance system for these flights were accurate and posed no safety hazard to these flights.” –Andrea Huguely, American Eagle