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For the past year, the Federal Aviation Administration has been conducting a survey of Southwest Airlines' practices for tracking the weight of baggage loaded in its jets, according to documents seen by the Wall Street Journal. The regulator would have considered these weight inaccuracies as a "high risk concern".
According to the Journal, Southwest Airlines differs from most of its American competitors in its practice of relying on its ground crew to hand bags instead of using a scanner. The airlines calculate the total weight of the luggage in the cargo hold by multiplying the number of baggage by the average weight of a single bag. Based on internal documents between the FAA and Southwest, the Journal found that manual counting of data resulted in extremely inaccurate weight estimates. According to the report:
The documents show that the federal aviation administration's one-year civil investigations revealed systemic and significant errors in employee calculations and baggage loading practices, which can lead to discrepancies when pilots calculate take-off weight. . The inaccuracies ranged from a few dozen pounds to more than 1,000 pounds in addition to what was stated in the records, which caused disputes between the company and some agency inspectors about the potential safety consequences.
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The agency has not yet decided to impose fines or other penalties, according to people familiar with the investigation, which has not been reported before.
The FAA and Southwest Airlines did not immediately respond to Gizmodo's requests for comment. An FAA spokesman told the newspaper that the agency had already ordered corrections to Southwest proceedings and that she "will not close her investigation until she is convinced that corrective actions taken by Southwest are consistent and sustainable. " it was a "routine dialogue" and the documents were not "findings of non-compliance".
What is the nature of the transaction with errors in calculating the weight of luggage in the Southwest hold? In a documented exchange with the FAA, South West officials said the discrepancies were a "minor risk" for passengers. But FAA inspectors told Southwest that in extreme circumstances, such as a power failure at take-off, a pilot could have difficulty operating the aircraft if he had miscalculated his weight and balance. And FAA officials have estimated that during certain periods, at least one-third of Southwest's daily flights took off with inaccurate luggage weight figures – in some cases, weight estimates were erroneous by more than a ton.
In a recent letter to the FAA, Jeff Hamlett, senior director of regulatory compliance at Southwest, said the airline would soon launch baggage scanners in Seattle, San Diego and Sacramento. A "phased rollout" nationwide will follow the initial test results.
Although the memory of the Southwest 737 engine explosion is still in the minds of travelers, the airline still has one of the strongest safety records in the industry.
[Wall Street Journal]
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