Upon reporting the misstep, “You may have to go back for remedial training. “Most carriers have adopted systems that are non-punitive,” says Waldock. Federal Aviation Administration initiative, it allows an employee to report a mistake without fear of getting in trouble.įAA says ASAP’s purpose “is to encourage air carrier and repair station employees to voluntarily report safety information that may be critical to identifying potential precursors to accidents.” The essence of it is this simple: sunshine can stop small problems from becoming large, life-threatening ones by creating “a non-threatening environment that engages the employee to voluntarily report safety issues.” One key component of Southwest’s (as well as other carrier’s) safety culture is a non-punitive reporting system called ASAP – the Aviation Safety Action Program.

In that regard, present CEO Gary Kelly carries on Kelleher’s concepts. Safety culture “comes from the top, the CEO.” Hayes indicates one of these qualities is critical. “Any or all of those contribute to good safety culture,” says Paul Hayes director of air safety and insurance for Ascend Worldwide, a major international aviation safety data supplier. Leadership, selective hiring, employee engagement and fleet commonalty underpin Southwest’s safety efforts. That’s a staggering 1.31 million flights a year! Southwest has 45,400 employees and fields 3,600 flights per day via 600-plus airplanes. It’s easier to label your company a ‘family’ affair when it’s relatively small harder – perhaps – after it’s all grown up and spread its wings. In its Safety Commitment statement the airline asserts, “All Southwest Airlines Employees, from Leadership to Frontline Employees, are responsible for establishing the highest level of Safety in our operation and workplace.” “His philosophy was that everybody is a part of safety…that if you were a part of the Southwest family you had responsibilities to the rest of the family” to shepherd the airline’s safety, tend to the common good. “It started out, really, many years ago when Herb Keller was chairman,” says the Embry-Riddle safety professor. The carrier’s safety culture is rooted in a pervasive, persistent sense of what constitutes the common good. So, is Southwest merely lucky? The evidence certainly argues otherwise. “They’ve never actually had a catastrophic accident,” says Waldock. That’s not the whole Southwest accident/incident record, but it’s the most notable. Jand Aprespectively a pair of the carrier’s 737-300s sprouted holes in the tops of the fuselage. Other major occurrences include a couple of aircraft structural problems that hit the headlines. JSouthwest 345 landed at New York LaGuardia nose-gear first and it collapsed with ten people on board suffering minor injuries. Waldock is also director of the Harry Robertson Aircraft Accident Investigation Laboratory. “The bottom line…is that if you land an airplane long (too far down the runway) on a very short runway, and it’s 29 knots too fast, you’re probably going off the end,” says the professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. Bill Waldock helped investigate the accident.

The carrier’s closest call to full-blown catastrophe came March 5, 2000, when Southwest 1455 overran the runway at Burbank, California injuring 43. In a separate incident on Auga passenger died of his injuries when fellow passengers restrained him after he broke through the cockpit door. A young boy died when Flight 1248 skidded off the runway and hit the vehicle in which he was riding. It was at Chicago Midway, on December 8, 2005, that Southwest recorded its only death related to safety issues. The record is exemplary, but not without blemishes. See passenger reviews for Southwest Airlines During the same timeframe it made 23.9 million trips. To fully fathom how remarkable the single safety-related fatality is you’ve got to consider that over the first 42 years of its 43-year existence, the period for which we have complete numbers, Southwest transported some 1.7 billion passengers – 1,708,515,297 to be precise. Beneath the fun and frolic that characterize the Southwest’s public persona there’s a no-nonsense – and serious – culture of safety that saves lives. In the 43 years it’s taken for Texas based Southwest Airlines to grow from an irreverent, upstart carrier to the largest domestic airline in the United States it has suffered a sole safety-related fatality.

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