Southwest Airlines insists it won’t abide by FAA deadline for paying $10.2-million fine

Southwest Airlines Company, the biggest low-cost airline in the United States, has said it will not abide by the deadline for paying a fine of $10.2 million imposed on it for having flown its jets without required inspections. The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had set August 29, 2008, as the deadline for the airline to pay the record penalty or have the case sent to the United State’s Attorney’s Office.

Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas, Texas, the United States, had its largest focus city at McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas. It is the largest airline in the United States by number of passengers carried domestically per year and also the largest airline in the world by number of passengers carried. The carrier maintains the fourth-largest fleet of aircraft among all of the world’s commercial airlines.

A statement from Southwest Airlines said that it has informed the US Federal Aviation Administration – the agency of the United States Department of Transportation with authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of civil aviation in the US – of the decision not to pay the fine on the date scheduled.

The FAA had slapped the penalty in March 2008 after the aviation regulator found that Southwest Airlines knowingly flew 46 older-model Boeing 737 planes without performing mandatory structural inspections.

It came to light that Southwest Airlines operated 46 Boeing 737s in 2006 and 2007 without full inspections for possible cracks in the fuselage. Southwest Airlines later found cracks on 6 of the planes, the FAA said.

On its part, Southwest Airlines insisted that “safety was not compromised by flying the Boeing 737 planes,” citing opinions from the Boeing Company a former federal safety investigator.

The incident had set off a big controversy, leading to a hearing by US Congress into the relationship between the Federal Aviation Administration and the airline industry in the United States and also resulted in legislation to create a whistle-blower office at the FAA.

Even after negotiations that were held for many months, neither the FAA nor Southwest Airlines is refusing to back down on the issue of penalty. Over a week ago, the FAA, in a letter to the airline, had said that it “has no intention of reducing the size of the penalty because of the serious nature of the safety lapses.”

The Federal Aviation Administration’s proposed fine of $10.2 million imposed on Southwest Airlines is the largest proposed against an airline.

Earlier, on August 14, 2008, the FAA had proposed a fine of $7.1 million against American Airlines, the world’s largest airline and a subsidiary of AMR Corporation. American Airlines was fined, according to the FAA, because the carrier had deferred maintenance, had not performed adequate lighting inspections, and was found deficient in its alcohol and drug testing.

However American Airlines had denied the FAA’s findings.