Southwest Airlines back to normal after inspections

Operations returned to normal for Southwest Airlines on Wednesday after McCarran International Airport’s busiest carrier voluntarily removed 128 of its Boeing 737-700 jets from service Tuesday.

The airline issued a statement late Tuesday saying that it removed the 144-passenger jets from service after discovering inspections on backup hydraulic systems were overdue.

Southwest canceled 80 flights across its network Tuesday because of the missed inspections, said Brandy King, a spokeswoman for the carrier. A Southwest spokesman said Wednesday that the airline didn’t have specific information by city or flight as to how many cancellations and delays occurred at McCarran. Southwest is McCarran’s busiest carrier and has nearly 200 daily flights to and from Las Vegas.

Inspections take about two hours, and as of Wednesday morning, 80 had been completed. Mechanics in various locations are conducting most of the inspections with the majority of them occurring at the airline’s Dallas Love Field headquarters. A spokesman said it isn’t likely that any of the inspections are occurring at McCarran.

The standby hydraulic systems serve as the final backup to two primary levels of equipment, and inspections generally occur over two-year intervals. Each inspection takes about two hours, Southwest said.

“This is a periodic inspection of a backup system,” the FAA said in an emailed statement. “The FAA evaluated the risk and agreed that the airline could continue to operate the planes during this short interim.”

The airline also was hampered Tuesday by weather delays from a winter storm that affected operations in Dallas.

When the overdue inspections were discovered, the airline notified the Federal Aviation Administration, which late Tuesday granted Southwest permission to continue operating the jets a maximum of five days while the inspections are carried out. About 80 cancellations systemwide were reported by Southwest on Tuesday while it awaited a response from the FAA.

“The airline is anticipating very minimal impact to its Wednesday operation as remaining checks are completed,” Southwest said in a statement issued Tuesday.

The airline’s 700 series jets make up the largest portion of Southwest’s fleet with 450 of the 674 jets in the fleet being that model.

Late Wednesday, FAA flight tracking systems were showing major delays in several cities because of weather problems. Cities affected most included Denver; Atlanta; Charlotte, N.C.; and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

The latest incident contrasts with Southwest’s failure to perform inspections for fuselage cracks in 2006 and 2007. In that case, Southwest and an FAA manager knew about the missed inspections involving 46 jets used on almost 60,000 flights, and didn’t report them. The issue didn’t come to light until whistleblowers brought it to congressional investigators. The FAA sought a then-record $10.2 million fine, and Southwest later agreed to pay $7.5 million.

Southwest is opposing a proposed $12 million fine the FAA proposed last year for operating “numerous flights” in 2009 with inadequate repairs to fuselage skins. The maintenance was designed to eliminate potential cracks on 44 of the airline’s 737s. The repairs were done by a Southwest contractor. Also in 2009, Southwest inspected all 181 of one model of 737 for metal weakness after a hole about a foot wide opened in a plane’s fuselage, forcing an emergency landing. No flaws were found, Southwest said at the time.

A year earlier, the FAA told American Airlines to park its Boeing MD-80s because of what the agency said were maintenance failures that led to chafed wires, misrouted wiring bundles and missing clamps. That incident forced American to cancel 3,300 flights — and came as the FAA faced criticism over its failure to oversee maintenance at Southwest.

Shares of Southwest Airlines fell $1.23, or 2.71 percent, to close at $44.12 on Wednesday.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report. Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Find him on Twitter: @RickVelotta.