Southwest: Safety and Risk Management Historically, Southwest Airlines has definitely turned heads in both business and aviation when it comes to how their company deals with risk. In 2014, the firm acquired AirTran, a Florida-based airline for over a $1 billion dollars. While the moved surprised many in the industry, Southwest essentially showed that they viewed that expensive acquisition as a form of an insurance policy. Risk manager Chris Thorn asserted, “We knew that this was going to be a great opportunity to try to save some money on our aviation placement” (Reynolds, 2014). Fundamentally, what looked like a splurge in spending with questionable reasoning behind it, soon manifested as both a risk management and savings maneuver. “AirTran and Southwest went into the market as a joint placement. That resulted in lower pricing for both sets of risk exposures” (Reynolds, 2014). This was a shining example of the mentality that guides so many of Southwest’s risk management moves: making strategic alliances that have a mutual benefit for all parties involved. Thorn has long credited his ability to engage in risk management with aplomb and effectiveness with his strong ability to problem solve, along with his marked understanding and compassion for the other professionals he works with, and their personal and professional limitations (Reynolds, 2014). Hence, one could argue that in the past, the bulk of Southwest’s perspective on risk management was largely colored by the perspective that most people working in aviation were trying to do the right thing and that all he need to was help empower others. Risk management at Southwest has long been characterized with an inherent sensitivity that realizes everyone has struggles and people they report to, and that there are still certain political dynamics between companies and the overall decision-making process (Reynolds, 2014).

However, recently the company has been on the receiving end of some very bad press regarding risk and safety. “Months before an airborne accident claimed the life of a Southwest Airlines passenger, the Federal Aviation Administration found that distrust between managers and mechanics at Southwest’s Dallas maintenance base was so bad, FAA investigators feared it could put passengers at risk” (Friedman & Douglas, 2018). Southwest has been on the receiving end of a host of whistleblower complaints from Southwest mechanics of late, and the FAA has assessed that Southwest supervisors dissuaded these mechanic from making official records of these aircraft issues, and that supervisors even doubted these technicians when maintenance issues were found in areas of the plane that they were not in charge of inspecting. In fall of last year, the FAA made official commentary on this trend, arguing that the management’s...

a tool used to influence a relaxing of standards, to look the other way, or to gain a degree of approval through a leniency of standards…The result of this pattern is a capitulation of airworthiness and a culture of fear and retribution. Some personnel have resorted to photographing their findings ... as a tool to ensure they can prove what they discovered in the event they are questioned by management” (Friedman & Douglas, 2018). This demonstrates clearly that from an internal level, management is sort of sticking their heads in the sand when it comes to dealing with risk and safety. This is an indication of a sick company culture: if management has become so opposed to dealing with problems that they essentially deny that the company has any problems and then punish or ignore workers who try to shed light on those issues.
This is clearly demonstrative of a very damaged and destructive internal culture. These declarations made by the FAA occurred six months before a woman was partially yanked out of a woman that had been broken out by flying debris from a failing engine: this woman later died in the hospital (Friedman & Douglas, 2018). While investigators could not determine what it was exactly that made this flying debris come lose, and there were not 2017 whistleblower complaints that touched on this at all, the imbalanced safety culture definitely offers some suggestions as to why this happened. When a company essentially creates a culture where risk and uncertainty as manifested by massive safety problems are met with denial or anger that problems exist at all, they create more problems. The loose fan blade in the case of the woman that was partially pulled out the window could very likely have occurred as a result of the fact that Southwest had created a culture that was inhospitable to sharing and addressing safety and risk concerns. It looks like many mechanics there have just been beat into submission and to just check the planes and say that things are fine regardless of accuracy.

If the company wants to improve risk management, they need to be able to fix this very sick and imbalanced internal culture, not just for the survival of the airline, but so that they don’t further damage their reputation and their sense of trust with customers. A recent study that examined both individual and organizational factors that can have a positive impact on risk responsiveness, found that having clear channels of communication is pivotal (Ford & Stephens, 2018). The study found that “…having safety conversations at work, possessing self-efficacy, and being willing to respond appropriately to risks” were absolutely vital when it came to appropriately managing risk (Ford & Stephens, 2018). As a result of…