Southwest Airlines FAA Compliance Scandal: Ethics Analysis

Introduction

This paper introduces, discusses, and analyzes the topic of ethical and social responsibility as it applies to a specific corporate case. Specifically, it examines Southwest Airlines' failure to comply with the Federal Aviation Administration's rules on inspecting aircraft, and what violations occurred as a result.

Southwest Airlines is a discount airline serving the United States. The carrier has never experienced a fatal plane crash and flies Boeing 737 aircraft exclusively. In March 2008, Southwest was forced to ground 47 of its planes until FAA inspectors could examine the aircraft for safety issues. Previously, Southwest had ignored mandatory safety inspections and continued to fly the planes without them, endangering passengers and crewmembers alike.

Background: The 1988 Aloha Airlines Accident and FAA Inspection Requirements

The missed inspections came to light because of two FAA whistleblowers who alleged that their FAA supervisor was working with a Southwest Airlines official to cover up the lapsed inspections. Clearly, this is an issue tied to social responsibility and ethics at the highest level, because ignoring the safety inspections put people's lives in jeopardy.

This situation actually began in 1988, when an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 suffered a catastrophic accident that killed a flight attendant. The top of the plane's fuselage tore away, opening up a large section of the aircraft's roof. The accident was caused by cracks in the fuselage. Ever since that incident, the FAA has required regular inspections of 737 fuselages to ensure a similar accident does not occur again.

The Whistleblowers: Boutris, Peters, and the Cover-Up

In 2007, two FAA inspectors began to question documentation and inspection records at Southwest Airlines. They had reason to be concerned: they felt their concerns were being dismissed, and their supervisor was not investigating their complaints.

FAA inspectors Bobby Boutris and Douglas Peters testified before Congress about their experiences and requested whistleblower status, meaning they could not be fired from their jobs because of their testimony. Boutris was the first to question records kept by Southwest regarding airplane inspections. In 2003, he was responsible for inspecting engines for the 737, and he could not make sense of Southwest's reports. He told an NPR reporter, "I had found a lot of inconsistencies with the records. They were different from aircraft to aircraft; it was very hard to determine compliance" (Goodwyn, 2008). He noted that he complained to his supervisor, Douglas Gawadzinski, who ignored his concerns.

In 2006, Boutris took over safety responsibility for the entire 737-700 series aircraft. When he reviewed Southwest's records, he found the same recordkeeping problems he had uncovered in 2003. He notified his supervisor and sought to send a letter of investigation — a very serious matter for any airline — but his supervisor, Gawadzinski, refused. Boutris believes this was because Gawadzinski had a close friendship with Paul Comeau, a former FAA employee who had gone to work for Southwest as their manager for regulatory compliance. Anything involving Southwest and the FAA passed through these two men, and Boutris believed they routinely covered up inspection irregularities or the absence of inspections altogether. Boutris continued to raise complaints, and Southwest asked that he be removed from their inspections.

Reporter Goodwyn describes what followed: "At first, Gawadzinski refused to remove Boutris. But it wasn't long before the supervisory maintenance inspector told Boutris he was out and that his career was in jeopardy because there had been undisclosed complaints from anonymous Southwest officials" (Goodwyn, 2008). At that point, Douglas Peters, another FAA inspector, was brought in to review Boutris' investigation into Southwest's compliance. As Goodwyn notes, "The more he looked into the matter, the more he agreed with Boutris that the flying public was in danger. Peters says the situation defied logic. 'That something so critical … would be not addressed … I can't explain it. It's a mystery'" (Goodwyn, 2008). Southwest personnel then began contacting Gawadzinski directly, bypassing Peters entirely.

As another reporter observed, "The whistle-blowers complained repeatedly in memos written in 2007 that their concerns about Southwest were not being taken seriously. The underlying safety concern — that the airline was unable to keep up with mandatory inspections — had been raised as early as 2003, one charged" (Levin, 2008). Finally, in March 2007, Southwest admitted to flying 47 Boeing 737s without completing the required fuselage inspections, triggering a Congressional investigation. Even more disturbing, the airline continued to fly those planes after disclosing the missed inspections; it took nearly a week to ground them.

The two inspectors testified before Congress in April 2008, and the FAA subsequently fined Southwest $10.2 million for the violations. As Levin reports, "Last month, nearly a year after the initial problems were discovered, the FAA levied a $10.2 million fine against Southwest. The vast majority of the fine was imposed because Southwest had certified that it stopped flying the planes as soon as it learned of the missed inspections, FAA officials said" (Levin, 2008). These are the central facts and timeline of the case.

Ethical and Social Responsibility Analysis

If there are any assumptions to be drawn from this case, it is that Southwest was arrogant and felt that its close relationship with the FAA allowed it to cover up safety issues. This assumption stems from the whistleblowers' statements combined with Southwest's attitude toward the inspections. The airline appeared to believe the checks were unnecessary and that it could avoid accountability. It does not make sense for a genuinely socially conscious and ethical airline to ignore safety requirements — or to take such chances with human lives — so the reasonable inference is that the company did not place adequate value on the safety of its passengers and crewmembers.

The major overriding issue in this case is that the FAA and Southwest conspired to conceal inspection information, doing so at the expense of passengers and crewmembers. The inspections were mandated because the FAA recognized that this particular aircraft type had critical structural vulnerabilities. By allowing uninspected planes to continue flying, both parties put everyone aboard those aircraft in jeopardy — and they knew it. That is perhaps the most significant ethical concern of the case: the company knew it had not completed required checks but continued operations regardless. One of the whistleblowers was told the planes were not grounded because doing so would "disrupt" Southwest's service and flight schedule (Goodwyn, 2008).

Any airline bears a social responsibility to keep its passengers and crews as safe as possible. Aviation is a relatively safe mode of travel, but accidents do occur. Maintaining high maintenance and safety standards is simply the right thing to do in the transportation industry — it is the ethical, moral, and socially responsible choice. For an airline to lower those standards, particularly out of concern for service disruption, is incomprehensible. It reflects unethical behavior and pure greed in the worst sense, and it defies common sense. Had one of the uninspected planes crashed due to an undetected fuselage crack, the entire airline's existence would have been at risk. Indeed, inspections of the grounded aircraft did reveal cracks in some of the planes — cracks that required repair before the aircraft could fly again (Wilber, 2008). Southwest therefore put people in danger, and that constitutes a major ethical violation that was never thoroughly addressed by the media or by the airline itself.

Furthermore, the FAA was complicit in this ethical transgression by allowing it to occur, calling into question the integrity of the very organization charged with ensuring airline safety. If the oversight agency itself is compromised, it brings the entire regulatory system into question. This issue warrants further study because it raises profound moral and ethical questions, and because the absence of lasting consequences for the FAA suggests that similar failures could occur again.

Conclusion

Kelly, G. (2008). Southwest Airlines provides testimony to U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Retrieved 29 Nov. 2008 from the Southwest Airlines Web site:

Levin, A. (2008). Inspectors: FAA officials gave Southwest a pass on safety checks. Retrieved 29 Nov. 2008 from the USA Today Web site:

Wilber, D. Q. (2008). Airlines, FAA under fire on the hill: Lawmaker links safety lapses to 'cozy relationship,' will hold hearing. Retrieved 29 Nov. 2008 from the Washington Post Web site: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102696.html.