In March 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stepped up oversight of United Airlines, after the airline had a series of incidents and accidents. Since then, the FAA has been auditing the airline to figure out if there are any areas for improvement, and the results are in…
FAA identifies no safety issues at United
On October 2, 2024, the FAA put out a statement regarding its United safety audit, which is just two sentences:
The FAA finished its Certificate Holder Evaluation Program (CHEP) of United Airlines. The review did not identify any significant safety issues.
For background, United got a lot of media attention following a series of incidents over a short period of time, ranging from a United 777 losing a wheel while taking off from San Francisco, to a United 737 suffering a gear collapse while landing in Houston.
While United of course historically has a great safety record, one wondered what exactly was going on here. Was this just a coincidence? Was United’s faster pace of growth than competitors impacting safety? Was United having the oldest fleet of the “big three” causing more incidents?
While United was being audited, it impacted the carrier’s ability to take delivery of new aircraft, and even impacted the ability to launch some new routes. So it’s good news that no major issues were identified. I guess United must have just had very bad luck in terms of the timing of incidents.
At the time that the audit was announced, United’s VP of Corporate Safety stated that the airline “welcomes their engagement and are very open to hear from them about what they find and their perspective on things we may need to change to make us even safer.”
The FAA audit at Southwest should be more interesting
While United’s FAA safety audit has been concluded, there’s another US airline that’s currently being audited. As of July 2024, the FAA is also auditing Southwest Airlines’ safety policies. That audit seems to be more about pilot training than maintenance.
It came after a shocking number of close calls at Southwest. Just in recent months, we’ve seen a scary go around in Hawaii, a dangerously low approach in Oklahoma City, an inflight Dutch roll, taking off from a closed runway, and a dangerously low approach in Tampa. And those are just several of the incidents that have been reported and have been made public, so who knows how many other incidents are out there.
It’ll be fascinating to see what comes of that investigation, because that seems to me like the much more concerning situation. Has Southwest just had really bad luck, or what’s the underlying problem with the company’s safety culture? Admittedly Southwest is a huge airline, and operates a lot of flights each day. However, a disproportionate number of the recent incidents involving pilot error are at Southwest.
Bottom line
The FAA has concluded its safety audit of United, and has found no major points of concern. I suppose the series of incidents earlier this year were just really bad luck, combined with a lot of media attention going to the airline, causing the FAA to investigate.
What do you make of the FAA concluding its United safety audit?
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