Southwest Airlines Responds to Congressman Oberstar's Recent News
Conference
DALLAS, March 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- We share Congressman James
Oberstar's feelings about the importance of a strong commitment to Safety. From
its inception, Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) has maintained a rigorous Culture
of Safety-and has maintained that same dedication for more than 37 years. It is
and always has been the airline's number one priority to ensure the Safety of
every Southwest Customer and Employee. For example, the Airworthiness Directive
referenced in the FAA Letter of Penalty involves skin inspections that were
based on a plan developed right here at Southwest.
"We've got a 37-year history of very safe operations, one of the safest
operations in the world, and we're safer today than we've ever been," said
Southwest CEO Gary Kelly.
We also want to ensure you that Southwest Airlines is and has always been 100
percent compliant with the Rudder Airworthiness Directive (AD) referenced by
Congressman Oberstar. The only rudder issue raised with us was never a violation
of any FAA Airworthiness Directive. What was missed by Southwest was the
accomplishment of a specific Boeing-required task pertaining to the Standby
Rudder Power Control Unit (PCU), which has nothing to do with the Airworthiness
Directive that Congressman Oberstar referenced. The Standby Rudder PCU is
redundant; meaning, it is not powered on the vast majority of flights. To date,
Southwest has performed the PCU check at issue over 200 times with zero
failures.
The Airworthiness Directive referenced in the FAA Letter of Penalty involves
one of many skin inspections on our aircraft and was never a safety of flight
issue. Southwest actually performed the inspection, but missed inspecting an
area of .006 of the total inspection area. Southwest helped develop the program
in 1999, before it became an FAA directive. Boeing relied on Southwest's program
to develop the Service Bulletin that led to the eventual Airworthiness Directive
in question. Southwest has a long history of working with Boeing, consistently
maintaining a leadership role in developing maintenance programs for the Boeing
737 aircraft. Southwest is the largest Boeing 737 operator in the World.
http://www.southwest.com
