The FAA Signed Off on New Southwest Planes During the Shutdown – But Not New Delta Planes

The FAA did work for Southwest Airlines during the government shutdown and some other airlines are furious about it.

During the government shutdown the FAA wasn’t signing off on new aircraft. As a result Delta delayed the introduction of its Airbus A220 planes. So how did Southwest get to bring 3 new Boeing 737 MAXs into its fleet? Southwest got creative — and lucky.

  • Three planes were close to approval. Southwest asked for an FAA inspector on unpaid leave during the shutdown to finish the work. This was allowed as long as Southwest paid the full cost, since the government wasn’t authorized to pick up the tab.

  • They shelled out $3150 to the FAA for about 3 hours of work to certify 3 jets.

The FAA believed this was proper because the actual physical inspection of the aircraft had been completed prior to the shutdown, with paperwork remaining. But why shouldn’t Southwest have been allowed to pay for continued ETOPS certification so that they can fly to Hawaii? And why shouldn’t they pay for the full cost of those certifications anyway even with the FAA back up and running?

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. FAA is just a bunch of crooks anyway… $1k/hr for paperwork? Clearly I’m doing the wrong work. And even if a payment is made to the FAA can they legally pay the inspector for doing the work?

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