When the Federal Aviation Administration fined Southwest Airlines Co. in March for failing to conduct timely safety inspections, the carrier’s in-house counsel sprang into action. Their job was to try to negotiate a settlement of the $10.2 million penalty, the largest that the FAA had ever levied. But some observers think that lawyers at all airlines should get involved before the regulators come knocking.
Is Southwest contemplating such a change? Madeleine Johnson, who will become general counsel at the Dallas-based company May 19, says it’s too soon to say. But Johnson allows: “I feel certain that we will be having a dialogue” about the FAA’s safety directives.
