Avanti West Coast (AWC) was ordered to stop issuing train tickets just days before travel.
Passengers claim that as a result they are often denied cheaper tickets.
The rail regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), said AWC must provide an improved recovery plan for timetable creation and ticket release by February 2 or face “formal action.”
The company has apologized, citing industrial action and engineering work.
AWC operates services on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Glasgow Central. The route also serves the Midlands, North West England and North Wales.
Passengers who wanted to book tickets for weekend trips this month could only buy tickets a few days in advance.
Weekday tickets were also released well later than the 12-week booking window typically used by rail operators.
AWC said the delay was due to the need to create bespoke timetables during construction work in partnership with Network Rail.
Tickets can only be offered for sale after the timetables have been confirmed.
AWC initially made “reasonable progress” on an improvement plan drawn up in September that would give passengers more advance notice to book travel ahead of Christmas.
But, according to ORR, the “situation” has deteriorated this month.
Current plans for February show a “better picture for weekday travel but still falls short of passengers’ needs for weekend travel,” the regulator added.
ORR Director of Strategy, Policy and Reform Stephanie Tobyn said passengers were “rightly frustrated that this situation has deteriorated so quickly after a steady start to the recovery plan late last year”.
She added: “By February 2, we expect Avanti to realize what went wrong and outline how it intends to return to publishing timetables in industry-standard timescales, allowing passengers to plan and book journeys with greater confidence.
“Failure to create an acceptable plan or deliver improvements may result in more formal action.”
An AWC spokesman said: “Unfortunately, some tickets for Saturdays and Sundays were only available at short notice due to an unprecedented number of bespoke timetables having to be written to accommodate industrial action and engineering work that has stretched the industrial trains’ planning resources.
“We know this is causing a great deal of uncertainty and inconvenience for passengers and we are sorry for that.
“Weekend tickets are on sale now until mid-February, and we will be selling weekend tickets in six weeks until mid-March.”
On Monday it emerged that the operator canceled about one in five services in the four weeks to January 7th.
The company said “performance has steadily improved since then.”
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