Southwest grounds flights- Ambiguity discovered in 44 airplanes

Taking a “conservative approach” the Southwest Airlines Co. has decided to ground a little less than four dozen of its airplanes after it was slapped a huge fine of $10 million by the FAA. Another glitch in the safety inspections front seems to be the reason for this pull out.

While Southwest did not disclose the specific problem due to which it took the action of pulling out 44 of its planes, the FAA said it was largely related to an agency inspection requirement for window areas on 737-300 and 737-500 aircraft. The FAA said Southwest grounded the planes until it could verify that it correctly followed instructions for the inspections.

Reports say that out of the 44 planes that have been grounded one has retired and five were pulled back earlier only for repairs. The southwest airlines co. claims that the repair procedures and grounding of planes would mean an increase in the operational cost. However, they consider this action to be one that is taken as a conservative approach to avoid any further slacks in inspection procedures.

The airline, which boasts of a fleet of 520 aircrafts, all of which are Boeing 735s, operates around 3400 flights. The grounding of these 44 aircrafts has not only affected 4% of their scheduled flights but has also affected their share prices. The shares of southwest fell a whopping 7.3% deciding to finally settle at $11.49 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Aviation and regulatory officials who are now looking into the matter, considering the flaws from both the Southwest and FAA side, said that the planes should have been grounded immediately until the required crack inspections were completed. Southwest said the FAA and Boeing cleared the planes for flight while the inspections were completed.

Three Southwest employees have been placed on administrative leave; however their names or areas of work have not been disclosed. Two FAA officials in Dallas, where Southwest is based, have also been reassigned. Speculations are rife that they were involved with the inspections of the planes at southwest.

The congressional committee investigating the fuselage inspection issue believes that the problem would not have occurred in the first place had a ‘cozy relationship’ not developed between the airline maintenance officials and the FAA inspectors who facilitated such flaps in inspection of aircrafts thereby, compromising their safety.