Coming and Going

Is Southwest Safe?

UPRIGHT AND LOCKED

Is Southwest Safe?

Should you worry about flying Southwest Airlines , given recent revelations that the carrier failed to perform certain mandatory inspections?

No , say the experts. Southwest's actions were a serious breach of protoco l, but so many layers of safety features are built into the system that the lapse in this case wasn't critical.

"Should passengers, regulators and Congress be concerned? Sure. But does it mean the system is less safe? I don't think you can say that," says Robert Francis, a former vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board who investigated the ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades and the explosion of a TWA plane over Long Island, both in 1996.

The breach, he says, perhaps made flying the Southwest planes involved " very, very, very marginally less safe , but safety redundancies are enormous.'' The possibility that Southwest's lapse would lead to a crash is "way, way, way out there on the probability scale."

Whistle-blowers told Congress that some Federal Aviation Administration regulators knew Southwest was out of compliance but did nothing. Whether that indicates a broader problem within the FAA remains to be seen, says Thomas R. Anthony, director of the Aviation Safety and Security Program at the University of Southern California.

Southwest, which started operations in 1971, has a fleet of 523 B-737s and has never had a fatal crash . You can check the crash record of nearly any airline in the world at http://www.airsafe.com, which links to an FAA page that shows the crash record of every type of aircraft. A check of the Boeing 737 shows that the plane has been involved in 44 fatal crashes since 1972, not including fatalities due to terrorism. However, the site also provides details showing that nearly every incident involved a 737 operated by an airline in the developing world, and most crashes clearly involved pilot error.

Francis says not to worry about the type or age of aircraft being flown by an airline based in the United States or other developed countries. In those cases, the older the plane, the more vigorous the maintenance schedule. But do check airline crash records and type of aircraft being used when flying airlines based in the developing world.

Bottom line: From a consumer's point of view, Francis says, "there is no reason you shouldn't get on a plane with Southwest or any other [U.S.] airline tomorrow."

LUGGAGE TAG

Carry-On Controls

Delta Air Lines' recent announcement that it is beginning serious enforcement of carry-on baggage restrictions on international flights won rave reviews from readers of our blog, Travel Log ( http://blog.washingtonpost.com/travellog).

Delta's rules for international flights are fairly standard: In addition to a personal item, you can carry on a bag that weighs no more than 40 pounds and whose three dimensions, when added together, do not exceed 45 inches. The difference: Delta is strictly enforcing the rules and puts a red tag on bags that meet the standards. No red tag, bag is checked.

CoGo expected howls of protest , but from our admittedly unscientific study, travelers approve. In fact, some want to know: Why can't Delta include domestic flights?

A related note, to people who stash their stuff in bins at the front of the plane before walking to assigned seats in the middle or back: Your fellow passengers despise you.