Southwest caves to check planes

Faced with the largest fine of its kind in history, Southwest Airlines is doing whatever it can to keep from paying the full $10.2 million it’s faced with paying for its neglect in safety checks on its aircraft over a period of a few years.

The charges leveled by the Federal Aviation Administration could cause serious damage to Southwest, and now it is back pedaling by submitting roughly 8 percent of its fleet to tests to check for possible stress fractures in the planes’ fuselages, exactly what it failed to do when it should have.

The FAA itself has also come under heavy criticism during the process, being accused of knowing that Southwest was doing nothing about testing the planes that were potentially at risk, and placing a cozy relationship with airlines over its actual tasks in policing them.

Not surprisingly, scapegoats have been produced, as the chief executive of Southwest reports those he calls responsible for the planes missing their tests are now on paid leave while the situation is investigated.