Southwest Facing $10.2 Million FAA Fine Over Safety Checks

[Matt Molnar]

How did they inspect 38 planes in one day?

[HPNPilot1200]

How did they inspect 38 planes in one day?

When you ground that many aircraft greatly depended upon to fly on the schedule, you'll do whatever you can to get the inspections complete, whether it means offering overtime and possibly other incentives to mechanics, it's worth the cost to get them flying again. Pretty impressive response.

[LGA777]

From SWA--

Last night, we successfully completed reinspection of all aircraft that we had previously removed from scheduled service. Out of the 44 affected aircraft we told you about yesterday, only 38 aircraft were removed from service because five aircraft are in regularly scheduled heavy maintenance and one is retired. Of the 38 aircraft, 34 were cleared and put back into the schedule by early this morning. Four of those aircraft were held for surface repairs, and we expect to have them back in service by the weekend.


Alex

So Alex, does this mean they actually found legitimate cracks in 4 aircraft ? Thats they way I am interpeting this in a read between the lines way.

Regards

LGA777

[Matt Molnar]

Yes they did.

Southwest Repairs 4 Planes for Cracks

By DAVID KOENIG – 14 hours ago

DALLAS (AP) — Four of the planes that Southwest Airlines Co. grounded for inspections this week were found to have cracks in their fuselages and were undergoing repair, the company said Thursday.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i3xc ... QD8VCT7501

[PhilDernerJr]

How did they inspect 38 planes in one day?

When you ground that many aircraft greatly depended upon to fly on the schedule, you'll do whatever you can to get the inspections complete, whether it means offering overtime and possibly other incentives to mechanics, it's worth the cost to get them flying again. Pretty impressive response.

Also, when you have as many planes as they do, I would assume that more than 38 are in some kind of mx checks at any given time anyway. It shouldn't be hard to just hold off on some unnecessary checks on planes for a couple of days to free up resources to prioritize the 38 that needed checking.

[FlyingColors]

How did they inspect 38 planes in one day?

Very quickly.

"Sheana, they bought their tickets. I say let em crash!"

[Alex T]

How did they inspect 38 planes in one day?

When you ground that many aircraft greatly depended upon to fly on the schedule, you'll do whatever you can to get the inspections complete, whether it means offering overtime and possibly other incentives to mechanics, it's worth the cost to get them flying again. Pretty impressive response.

Also, when you have as many planes as they do, I would assume that more than 38 are in some kind of mx checks at any given time anyway. It shouldn't be hard to just hold off on some unnecessary checks on planes for a couple of days to free up resources to prioritize the 38 that needed checking.

You would be correct, SWA has about 525 planes, off and on. However they only utilize 483 of them any given day for the 3,400+ routes they fly daily.

On weekends, when schedule is reduced, more planes stay grounded.

On this day, SWA was scheduled to have 40 planes out of service anyway, then an additional 4 extra for the 44 planes taken out of service for inspection, so SWA had to operate a very tight schedule, yet only was able to cancel 128 flights, or between 4-8% of the actual flights being cancelled. It took about 90 minutes for the inspection for each aircraft.

As the article stated SWA really has had strong bookings, even higher this month compared to last year's of March. So if the public is troubled by this they sure aren't showing it through the bookings.

Alex

[Matt Molnar]

I read a report from some PR firm about the effect of this on Southwest and it sounds like the public is a bit down on Southwest's image, but overall the brand itself remains as strong as ever. I think they can thank the overall safety of our nation's air transport industry for that...because there have been so few accidents in the past few years, people still feel safe despite this seemingly dangerous oversight. If they had an accident (on any carrier) fresh in their minds, I think Southwest would take a bigger hit.