Southwest safety snafu heats up

Now, it’s not just the Federal Aviation Administration that has Southwest Airlines in its gunsights. Congressman James Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, will have Southwest CEO Gary Kelly and other top execs testify before his committee; April 3 is the magic date.

Despite Oberstar eliciting testimony that a complacent FAA inspector basically gave Southwest a pass on not doing legally required self-inspection of its planes, Kelly continues to sing the “don’t look here” tune:

“As long as there is integrity in the record-keeping and there are clear rules and regulations, they shouldn’t leave much room for any shenanigans there. At this point, I don’t have any evidence that that is an issue,” he said.

He also, despite the lack of inspections, apparently believes, sight unseen, that all of Southwest’s 737s are A-OK:

“I don’t think we have anything that’s broken,” he said. “But we’re certainly going to use this as an opportunity to review once again and make sure we’ve got the very best maintenance procedures in the world.”

Well, Kelly is either laying cow patties out in the north 40 or else he sincerely believes in the “don’t look here” school of CEO management.

So, Gary. Let’s get down to Southwest image brass tacks.

It’s not any cheaper to fly Southwest from Love than it is to fly American from D/FW in most cases. In fact, in some cases, it’s more expensive. And, your vaunted corporate reputation has gotten a hard kick in the gonads.

And all you can do is sing “don’t look here”?

At least with American, I expect the north 40 to be covered with cow manure as part of the cost of doing air travel business with them.