According to US media, the Federal Aviation Administration warned the budget carrier Southwest that was going to ground 88 of the airlines second hand Boeing 737 aircraft.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that last month the FAA said it was going to ground the jets that Southwest Airlines purchased from foreign carriers over an alleged lack of safety and repair documentation. The airline bought the aircraft from 16 different airlines and the FAA documentation last year regarding repairs done to the aircraft. It had given the airline a two-year time frame to complete thorough checks on those aircraft and produce the relevant and related paperwork.
Representatives from the FAA had been unhappy with the time Southwest had taken to do a complete those nose to tail inspections of the aircraft in question. The carrier says it has completed the FAA’s requirements for most of the aircraft, however, some 38 are still flying of which it hasn't provided documentation for. It said that last year, the airline “discovered a small number of repairs on a few of these 88 pre-owned aircraft that had been performed but not properly classified by the previous owners due to differences in language and repair criteria,”
“Our continuous assessment of the ongoing inspections has revealed nothing to warrant the expedited timeline, but we remain on track to have all aircraft involved inspected by the end of January,” a spokesperson said.
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