![]() It also found that of the 39 aircraft inspected, 24 had “significant airworthiness issues,” including previously unknown and undocumented repair and 42 documented repairs that did not meet FAA requirements. ![]() That memo found that Southwest provided “little to no oversight” of the contractor they’d hired to complete inspections and accepted at face value the contractor’s assurances that the aircraft were in compliance. That memo said that Southwest “continues to operate many of these aircraft without verifying that they currently meet airworthiness requirements and that FAA issued airworthiness certificates without proper documentation or a qualifying exemption.” So concerning were the FAA’s findings that that same day, Clay Foushee, the director of the FAA’s Office of Audit and Evaluation, sent a memo to FAA Administrator Steve Dickson urging “immediate corrective action.” Dickson late last month to question whether the aircraft were “airworthy.”Īfter discovering the discrepancies in May 2018, the FAA safety inspector reported his concerns about the aircraft bought from overseas to both the FAA Southwest Airlines Certificate Management Office and to senior FAA officials to no avail before raising the issue with the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, who investigated the matter and briefed FAA management on Oct. DeFazio, D-Ore., who wrote FAA Administrator Stephen M. Southwest Airlines: Vacation 2019 - See 44,931 traveler reviews, 3,154 candid photos, and great deals for Southwest Airlines, at Tripadvisor. 31, 2020.īut those assurances did not assuage House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Peter A. They have also conducted visual inspections and plan to do complete “nose to tail” inspections of all aircraft by Jan. The airline said it conducted a “thorough audit” of the aircrafts’ maintenance records. Southwest characterized the issue as one where it and the FAA found “a small number of repairs on a few of these aircraft” that had been performed but not properly classified by previous owners because of differences in language and repair criteria. ![]() In some cases, the contractor issued airworthiness certificates without even translating maintenance records into English. The least safe: Southwest The cheapest airline was Frontier Airlines, though in this case cheaper is not necessarily better, given that Frontier Airlines also ranked worst overall. The airline did a full inspection of 39 of the 88 aircraft 49 have yet to be evaluated. presents our independent Southwest Airlines safety ratings and reviews. As a variation in flight schedule impacts airline’s capacity (i.e., available seat. But in May 2018, an FAA aviation safety inspector discovered discrepancies in the records of the 88 airplanes, prompting a review in which Southwest Airlines found 360 major repairs that they had not known about. Historically, Southwest Airlines’ average occupancy rate has remained relatively stable at around 83.5.
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