Jaunted

pbb - We have indeed been busy, and I'm sorry if you weren't able to receive a comment from us.  

No one is more passionate about the safety of our Customers and Employees than we are, and it's important for our Customers to know that this situation was never and is not now a safety of flight issue.

Some media reports are suggesting that the FAA plans to fine Southwest, but to date, we have not received any notification or indication from the FAA that that is what they plan to do.

The inspections in question were one of many routine, redundant, and overlapping inspections of our fleet.  And, as the WSJ accurately points out, we discovered the missed inspection ourselves, informed the FAA, and promptly completed the missed inspections in March 2007. The FAA approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007.

Again, the safety of our Customers, Employees, and aircraft is always our number one concern.  Southwest has an excellent maintenance program, and this experience has helped improve the overall safety of the fleet.  

pbb - We have indeed been busy, and I'm sorry if you weren't able to obtain a comment from us.  

No one is more passionate about the safety of our Customers and Employees than we are, and it's important for our Customers to know that this situation was never and is not now a safety of flight issue.

Some media reports are suggesting that the FAA plans to fine Southwest, but to date, we have not received any notification or indication from the FAA that that is what they plan to do.

The inspections in question were one of many routine, redundant, and overlapping inspections of our fleet.  And, as the WSJ accurately points out, we discovered the missed inspection ourselves, informed the FAA, and promptly completed the missed inspections in March 2007. The FAA approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007.

Again, the safety of our Customers, Employees, and aircraft is always our number one concern.  Southwest has an excellent maintenance program, and this experience has helped improve the overall safety of the fleet.  

Paula Berg
Southwest Airlines

Southwest responds to another "kerfuffle." Nice 10 cent word.  I look forward to the YouTube response (or at least seeing more of the girl who did the Girls of Southwest response).

Anyways, all this news comes just hours after my wife and I book more Southwest flights.  So if you could please get your hands on some IDs of the planes in question, that'd be swell.  Thanks.

You can read more about Southwest's side of the story on the airline's blog.

"I don't believe you

Posted by: Jack | March 6, 2008 at 10:48 pm"

That Jack is a straightforward fellow.

The smallest bit of research about Southwest Airlines flack Paula Berg tells us this:

http://www.blogsouthwest.com/2007/06/15/behind-the-scenes-blog-queen/

Now, never mind "wacky", and "off-the-wall" - "behind-the-scenes Blog Queen" and "Nuts about Southwest" says it all for me.

So, to Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines, the airline company's "behind-the-scenes Blog Queen", who says, regarding the events of March 6-7, 2008, and the now-record US$10,200,000 in fines racked up by Southwest:

"...this situation was never and is not now a safety of flight issue".
Nonsense, Paula. Cracks in airplanes? Nonsense, Paula.

I've been around publicists and other entertainment folk for over 20 years, and I have heard better publicity emanating from self-plugging screenwriters on acid.

And, Paula, as for:

"[t]he FAA approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007".

Nonsense, Paula.

It's not "closed", until WE the PUBLIC say it is closed! Take that back to your superiors for me - and tell them that we are just getting started.

Oh - and, congratulations on staying behind the scenes.

John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland

Quiet Rockland of Rockland County, New York is enraged over the callous criminal disregard for safety and human life demonstrated by Southwest Airlines (NYSE: "LUV") and the FAA. We call for: (1) a nationwide traveler and consumer boycott of Southwest, and (2) a federal criminal investigation of Southwest and "failed regulator" FAA to be spear-headed by the United States Attorney General and a special prosecutor.

The persons that should be flying Southwest at this point, should be only those referred by Doctor Kevorkian. Although the depraved Southwest spin-machine audaciously `assures' us Southwest's six (6) cracked-fuselage aircraft were "never a safety problem", Southwest should tell that to the victims of the 1988 Aloha Airlines disaster. There, metal fatigue on an aging Boeing 737 caused 18 feet of fuselage to be ripped off the plane causing grievous injuries and loss of life. House Transportation Committee Chairman James Oberstar in his press conference Saturday, posted on "www.cspan.org", presented detailed evidence incriminating Southwest and "Bobby" Sturgell's failed FAA. The incriminating events occurred while "Bobby" Sturgell was Deputy Administrator and Acting Administrator of the FAA. On Saturday, Representative Oberstar thereupon rightfully excoriated the aero-perps for their long-standing "tombstone mentality". Although criminal and morally reprehensible, and now apparent after a many-month detailed Congressional investigation, Southwest and FAA are clearly in the insalubrious business of making those tombstones happen, in addition to simply reacting to those tombstones post facto.

As recently as last year, Southwest Airlines, with the complicity of supposed federal regulator FAA, on at least 47 of Southwest's Boeing 737 aircraft, on between 1,451 and 60,000 flights, over a period of two-and-one-half years, deliberately put approximately 200,000 or more unsuspecting travelers in harm's way - making them fly in un-inspected, non-compliant, aged, and in some cases fuselage-cracked commercial aircraft. Southwest knew the names and faces of their potential victims. Southwest gladly took their money, and for that matter at this point Southwest owes each of them at least a rebate in full of their ticket prices. This was not mere negligence. Irrespective of what forensic lesser charge might technically ultimately apply once further Congressional investigation concludes, the acts and omissions of Southwest and collaborator FAA were tantamount to attempted murder, on a massive scale.

This WILL not stand.

Quiet Rockland asks and encourages those Southwest employees tired of subscribing to their company's tombstone culture, to leave their sinking airship now to find other and better employ at a responsible airline that actually acknowledges the dignity of the individual human traveler. We further ask every American consumer to now act in solidarity - cancel all flights and other business with Southwest - boycott the airline which we today re-name "Air Kevorkian" - and just say "No" to Southwest, to FAA, and to the greed of the aeromercantile complex that continually and habitually puts profits over people's lives.

And, as to Southwest stockholders? Vote your conscience.

John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland