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Southwest Airlines faces yet another aircraft repair related fine — this time for $325,000 — from federal regulators after flying an airplane too long after it had received temporary repairs.
The Dallas Morning News reports the latest fine for Southwest brings its total tab to $12,653,550 in less than two years.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the most recent fine stems from when an inspector with the regulator took a look at an 18-year-old Boeing 737 while it was in a maintenance facility in San Salvador, El Salvador in July 2014.
The inspector discovered that Southwest had improperly recorded a temporary repair to an nine-inch crease in the aluminum skin of the jetliner’s rear cargo door as a permanent repair.
“The inspector discovered that this fuselage damage had first been reported in Southwest Airlines’ maintenance records on May 2, 2002, which is when the airline made the temporary repair,” the FAA states. “The airline was required to inspect the temporary repair every 4,000 flights and complete a permanent repair within 24,000 flights.”
The FAA alleges that Southwest didn’t abide by those requirements, and instead flew the plane on 24,831 flights without performing periodic inspections.
“The agency further alleges the airline operated the plane on 4,831 flights beyond the flight threshold by which it was required to have performed the permanent repair,” the agency states. “The final repair was completed on July 24, 2014.”
For its part, Southwest says it discovered the potential deficiency in July 2014 and all issues were promptly addressed to the satisfaction of the FAA.
“There is no impact to any other aircraft in our fleet,” Brad Hawkins, a spokesperson for the airline tells the Dallas Morning News. “Safety is the highest priority at Southwest, and we strive always toward full compliance with established and approved maintenance processes and procedures. Southwest has requested a meeting with the FAA to discuss the proposed penalty.”
The airline’s latest fine comes four months after the FAA levied a $328,550 fine against Southwest for two safety issues that occurred in 2013.
The first case – which received a penalty of $265,800 – involved a plane that lost cabin pressure during a flight from Boston to St. Louis in May 2013. The FAA alleges that mechanics for the airline failed to do a mandatory inspection for damage and to ensure the depleted oxygen bottles were replaced after the flight landed.
In the second case, the FAA alleges that mechanics improperly deferred repairs and failed to log issues regarding air leaking from an air conditioning unit on one of Southwest’s AirTran Airways planes.
Back in February, the airline had to cancel dozens of flights after learning that one-fifth of its entire fleet was overdue for necessary maintenance checks. In all, the airline had to ground 128 planes pending inspection, but reached a deal with the FAA that allowed the jets to continue flying.
The airline is also currently battling the FAA on a $12 million fine related to improper repairs going back as far as 2006. When the fine was first reported in January 2014, FAA investigates said they found three separate incidents in which Southwest and its hired contractor improperly repaired aircraft.
Southwest refused to pay the fine, and in November the U.S. government filed a lawsuit seeking the payment. That case is scheduled to go to trail in 2016.
Southwest Airlines hit with $325,000 FAA fine over aircraft repair [The Dallas Morning News]
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(afagen)
Many of the scam emails have been reported by E-ZPass users in Virginia and the D.C Metro area, reports WTOP.com, but when these things hit one region, it’s likely they could pop up elsewhere as well.
The official-looking emails often include a color logo with a similar font to the real E-ZPass logo, and claim drivers are “indebted” for traveling on toll roads. The messages says the email is a “notice to appear.”
The email then directs the recipient to clink a link and then provide personal and financial information, at which point users are in danger of downloading a virus to their computer that could threaten its security.
One of the targeted users includes AAA’s John B. Townsend II, the Mid-Atlantic Manager of Public and Government Affairs, who received one of the emails and was able to identify it as part of a phishing scam.
“Everyone must be on guard for these fraudsters attempting to con you out of your hard-earned funds and account information, compromise your security, and wreak havoc on your computer system,” he said in a news release via Patch.com. “Be wary. Be wise. Don’t fall prey to any attempt to steal your personal information. Be skeptical of all e-mail that directs the user to a website in which credit card or personal information is entered.”
Always pay attention to the wording of suspicious emails — they often contain poor grammar and misspelled words. In this case, scam emails might contain toll road number “000923942.”
When in doubt, check it out: Anyone who receives an unsolicited email demanding payment can call the toll-free E-ZPass customer service center at 1-877-762-7824. You can also notify the Federal Trade Commission to help put the kibosh on scammers.
E-ZPass holders targeted in scam [WTOP.com]
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Comcast’s continued plans to spend mountains of money and to take over the world continue apace: as rumored, NBCUniversal has dropped $200 million this week into journalism and cat gif juggernaut BuzzFeed.
The press releases from the two companies highlight “strategic partnerships” (of course) and say that the two will be collaborating on “television content, movies, the Olympics, and joint partnerships with ad agencies and brands.”
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti also specified that the deal would allow his company to extend their reach into TV and film, which is perhaps a surprising statement from a youth-focused, 21st century, digital-only media company.
The news out of BuzzFeed comes less than a week after Comcast announced an identically-sized investment in Vox Media.
Vox and BuzzFeed are, of course, competitors in the digital media space. Both are ascendant and popular, and both are in many ways targeting the same consumers. And now Comcast has fingers in both pies. Metaphorically, it’s a lot like backing both the Red Sox and the Yankees. Nice trick if you can swing it.
By investing in digital-first news outlets, Comcast is of course also competing with itself and the traditional media it owns. NBCUniversal encompasses several major news properties, in the forms of NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC. In short, no matter where consumers go, Comcast shareholders get to win.
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(.sanden.)
The USPS is a quasi-governmental agency that gets some small government subsidies, but mostly has to support itself. One expense it has that most businesses don’t is funding employee retirement and health benefits far into the future. Without this requirement, the current Postmaster General told the Wall Street Journal, the USPS would actually have turned a profit in 2014.
The delivery of items like water, fish, and groceries are part of an experiment, but the experiment looks promising. Right now, it means paying employees during hours that the postal service normally isn’t out making deliveries, and they also will need to find vehicles better suited to deliveries of perishables.
Ultimately, grocery delivery could make the postal service $10 million per year if it works out. Another proposal is finally allowing the USPS to deliver alcohol, something that the new Postmaster General estimates could lead to $50 million in revenue if Congress approves it. The ban on booze by mail dates back to Prohibition, and somehow just stayed in place until now.
Another problem: competitors like UPS, FedEx, and regional carriers wonder whether the USPS is charging too little for services like Priority Mail for high-volume shippers. USPS has been successful in the market for small e-commerce packages, and also bringing packages on the last leg of their journey, from the local package depot to the customer’s doorstep.
U.S. Postal Service Tries Hand as Fishmonger, Grocer [Wall Street Journal]
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(JeepersMedia)
From a consumer’s point of view, there isn’t much of a difference. You could buy an unlocked phone out of pocket and not be tied to any one carrier, but when carriers offer interest-free installment plans, that doesn’t make much sense.
In practical terms, there’s not much of a difference between not being able to leave your carrier until you pay off 24 monthly installments on your new Galaxy and signing a two-year contract. Losing your phone is still an expensive calamity. You’re still tied to your carrier until you hand over a large amount of money all at once: under this model, it’s just called paying off your device instead of an early termination fee.
That’s the important difference: it used to be that when carriers made materially adverse changes to your mobile contract after you agreed to it, that would give you the opportunity to leave the carrier without penalty. This site made a point of pointing out such opportunities when they came along.
Most customers didn’t do this or know that it was an option, but now that consumers are making installment or lease payments on a device rather than signing a contract, opportunities to escape from contracts ETF-free will no longer be a thing.
Well… they won’t be a thing for most carriers. This change will mean that out of the four major carriers, AT&T will be the only one that still offers traditional phone subsidies and contracts to new customers. (Verizon will let customers with existing contracts sign new ones.)
Sprint to Abandon Two-Year Contracts [Wall Street Journal]
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Indira ordered a small box of cat litter, as boxes of cat litter go. The litter was fine, but she was a little concerned about the box that it arrived in. From what we’ve learned, this box was a bad choice both to accommodate the merchandise inside, and for its journey from Indira’s doorstep.
Here’s what she found when she opened the box.
As nice as it is to receive a big shipment of free packing materials, this is a little excessive. Obviously, there were no boxes large enough to accommodate the box of litter available.
Yet if that’s all the packing material inside, it means the box is under-filled, and the heavy container of litter could slide from side to side, affecting other packages that might be piled with it.
In summary, we don’t know what’s right here, and customers should always complain to Amazon about their packaging issues.
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