Southwest Airlines to pay $7.5-million fine for missed safety checks

Southwest Airlines, the low-fare airline based in Dallas, Texas, the United States, has agreed to pay a $7.5 million in penalties for a series of serious maintenance lapses.

The lapses concerned missed checks for potential cracks in the fuselages of 46 of Southwest Airlines’ aircraft, which the United Sates Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said described as “serious and deliberate safety violations.”

The $7.5 million in civil penalties, to be paid under an agreement with the government of the United States, arises from the Southwest Airlines’ failure to perform mandatory checks on jets for potential fuselage cracks, an official of the Federal Aviation Administration said.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, it is the second highest civil fine levied by the United States government against an airline and the fine could double to $15 million if Southwest Airlines failed to set up specific safety steps listed in the agreement announced by the FAA on March 2, 2009.

(The largest fine imposed on a US-based airline was $9.5 million, on Eastern Airlines, in 1987, according to the FAA. Eastern Airlines went out of business after paying only $1 million out of the $9.5 million, and the rest was not paid).

The Federal Aviation Administration had initially proposed a record fine of $10.2 million against Southwest Airlines.

The settlement with Southwest Airlines comes from a civil penalty proposed a year ago against the airline for operating about 60,000 flights on 46 Boeing 737 aircraft that had not received mandatory checks for potential fuselage cracks. Hundreds of thousands of passengers, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a press release, flew on the 46 Boeing 737 aircraft in question from June 2006 to March 2007, when Southwest Airlines voluntarily revealed the missed inspections to officials of the FAA.

Under the agreement with the FAA, reached after a year of intense talks between Southwest Airlines and the federal aviation regulator, Southwest Airlines will pay three installments of $ 2.5 million each – with the first payment due within 10 business days, the second payment be due by January 15, 2010, and the third payment due by January 15, 2011.

Southwest Airlines, the Federal Aviation Administration said, would have to pay an extra $7.5 million if the airline did not fulfill 13 additional safety-related requirements, including raising the number of on-site technical representatives for heavy-maintenance vendors and giving more access to FAA’s inspectors to records for tracking maintenance.

In a statement, Southwest Airlines said it is “pleased to be able to have resolved all outstanding issues” and that  the settlement with the Federal Aviation Administration “will allow us to focus on safety going forward rather than on issues that are behind us.”

We don’t mind, though, Southwest. Thanks to you, some of these photos are still around, of sexy stewardesses in short shorts! That makes up for a lot, we say.

Photo: A Southwest stewardess in short shorts from long long ago!