Passengers sue Southwest over missed inspections
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - April 15, 2008 The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Birmingham, seeks
class-action status on claims that include breach of contract,
unjust enrichment, and negligent and reckless operation of an
aircraft.
Lew Garrison, a Birmingham lawyer who represents the passengers,
said Tuesday the class could include hundreds of thousands of
people who traveled on Southwest planes from January 2002 through
last month.
Garrison, in a telephone interview, said the lawsuit primarily
seeks reimbursement for tickets for those flights on the grounds
that the Dallas-based airline did not comply with government
regulations and did not honor its contract with its customers.
The suit also seeks punitive damages on one count that claims
Southwest behaved negligently in not grounding planes that had not
been deemed airworthy in compliance with government standards,
Garrison said.
The amount of damages was not specified.
Marilee McInnis, a spokeswoman for Southwest, said the company
does not comment on pending litigation.
"Fortuitously, of course, nothing happened, everyone arrived
safely at their destinations," Garrison said. "But that doesn't
change the fact that Southwest did not comply with its
obligations."
The "Contract of Carriage" on Southwest's Web site states:
"All transportation is sold and all carriage is performed subject
to compliance with all applicable laws and governmental
regulations, including those of the U.S. Department of
Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the
Transportation Security Administration, many of which are not
specified herein but are nonetheless binding on Carrier and all
passengers."
The lawsuit claims Southwest violated this contract by not
complying with FAA airworthiness directives "to correct pressing
safety risks which might not be detected through regular
maintenance." It says the FAA requires planes that do not meet
these directives to be grounded until compliance is reached.
Federal regulators said last month that Southwest operated
nearly 60,000 flights in 2006 and 2007 using 46 planes that had
missed inspections for possible fatigue-related cracking on the
fuselage areas.
The airline flew another 1,451 flights with the same planes in
March 2007, even after discovering that it had failed to conduct
the required inspections, the FAA charged. The federal agency
proposed a $10.2 million penalty; all but $200,000 of the proposed
penalty dealt with those later flights.
Southwest said six of the planes had small cracks that required
repairs.
The FAA had ordered airlines in September 2004 to conduct
inspections of some areas of the fuselage on some older models of
Boeing 737 aircraft once every 4,500 flights.
According to the lawsuit, the Transportation Department's
inspector general said in March 2007 that Southwest had 21 key
inspections that were overdue by at least five years. Gayle
Douglas, a Birmingham lawyer for the passengers, said that is why
the lawsuit covers flights back to 2002.
Garrison said he did not know of any other lawsuits against
Southwest over the missed inspections.