The Federal Aviation Administration warned Southwest Airlines and its mechanics union on Friday that their contract dispute, which includes a lawsuit claiming the labor group has sidelined planes by issuing unnecessary repair notices, raises safety concerns.
While the agency is neutral about the labor negotiations, safety is a shared responsibility of the Dallas-based carrier and its mechanics, “irrespective of any ongoing controversy between the two organizations,” Ali Bahrami, associate administrator for aviation safety, wrote to Southwest operations chief Mike Van de Ven and Bret Oestreich, national director for the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association.
The warning comes after years of negotiations with the mechanics union and follows a monthlong government shutdown that hurt sales early this year as well as a mid-flight engine failure in 2018 that shattered an airplane’s window and left a passenger dead. In its lawsuit, filed in federal court in Dallas, Southwest accused the mechanics union of urging members to impede its business by writing repair notices for even the most minor of issues.
The number of write-ups for minor interior parts — such as a missing row number, when the airline is famed for not assigning seats — climbed nearly six-fold after talks in an early February meeting with the National Mediation Board ended with a union representative shouting at a Southwest official and the mediator, then storming out of the meeting, according to the suit.
Southwest has a fleet of about 752 planes and typically needs at least 717 in service to meet its flight schedule, the airline said. Having more than 35 out of service interrupts operations, which was the case for at least 10 days in February, with as many as 61 jets parked on one occasion.
“The damage to the company runs in the millions of dollars weekly in lost revenue due to canceled flights and millions of dollars weekly in terms of additional costs caused by delays and cancellations,” CEO Gary Kelley said at a JPMorgan Chase aviation conference this week, blaming the union rather than the mechanics for the problems.
The mechanics “do an outstanding job, and they deserve an updated contract,” he said. “Clearly, this negotiation has dragged on far too long, much longer than our other large union groups, and all efforts at this point should absolutely be focused on good faith negotiations that will allow us to reward our superb mechanics.”
The FAA notice is in keeping with the agency’s standard practices for monitoring risks including labor unrest, Southwest said on Friday. The airline works to “proactively identify and correct potential safety concerns at all times — regardless of internal or external factors,” spokeswoman Brandy King said.
The mechanics union’s Oestreich declined to comment.
“The FAA,” Bahrami wrote in his letter, trusts that Southwest and the mechanics “will strive to ensure that any judicial order that might result from the litigation does not constrain appropriate safety activities.”
The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigated the deadly flight on April 17, 2018, has yet to issue a final report on the incident. The left engine on Flight 1380, which was carrying 144 passengers and five crew members, malfunctioned about 20 minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York City, said National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Robert Sumwalt.
The crew of the Boeing 737-700, bound for Dallas, initially reported an engine fire, though they clarified to air traffic controllers before an emergency landing in Philadelphia that, while parts of an engine were missing, there were no flames. When the plane landed, one of the power plant’s 24 fan blades was missing and part of the engine’s exterior cowling, or protective covering, was found about 70 miles from Philadelphia.
Kelly has called the death of the passenger, identified by her family as Jennifer Riordan, a 43-year-old Wells Fargo executive and mother of two from Albuquerque, a tragedy.
