The government is increasing oversight at Southwest Airlines, after a slew of concerning (and puzzling) safety incidents…
Government scrutinizing Southwest’s safety issues
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently auditing Southwest Airlines’ safety policies, after several recent close calls. A team of experts and leaders from the airline, unions, and the FAA, are partnering as part of this investigation. Here’s how Southwest Airlines explains this in a statement:
“This group is tasked with performing an in-depth, data-driven analysis to identify any opportunities for improvement. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees.”
We don’t have more details about what exactly this process will entail, and what the implications are for Southwest in the short term.
This comes after a shocking number of recent 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.
This isn’t the first airline to get increased scrutiny from the FAA. Back in March 2024, the FAA announced it would increase oversight of United Airlines, following a series of safety issues, most of which related to maintenance.
I’m curious what this investigation determines
I’m happy to see that the FAA is at least investigating what’s going on at Southwest, because the number of issues that we’ve seen lately just isn’t normal.
The question is, 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.
Just about all US airlines have more junior cockpits than they did before the pandemic, given how many new pilots have been hired. However, what’s specifically going on at Southwest that’s causing this? It’s beyond my pay grade, but at this point I think it’s hard to fully chalk this up to a coincidence. I’m curious to see what the experts determine.
Bottom line
The FAA has opened an investigation into Southwest Airlines’ safety issues, after several recent close calls. The number of incidents at Southwest lately just doesn’t make sense, so hopefully this initiative eventually makes the skies safer. I’m curious to see what comes of this.
What do you make of the FAA auditing Southwest?
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