N830MH

I heard they're found cracks on 3 aircraft during weekend inspections. Also, 19 planes were returned in service during afternoon flight. It just only 19 aircraft is already put back on revenue routes again. Once the inspections on entire 737-300s aircraft will be done by Tuesday.

ftnoob

I had the exact same thought. At the same time, however, "Southwest aircraft fly an average of 6 flights per day" per the fact sheet. That would imply 474 flights (79 * 6) should have been canceled, though that is just a ballpark figure. Saturday is a lighter than average day, but, OTOH, the -300s probably fly more flights per day than the -700s. So somewhat fewer flights than predicted by averages alone were canceled, but the PR spin is still disturbing.

Friends visiting from out of state have a WN flight home Monday. Saturday morning when the grounding news first hit, I looked up their scheduled equipment type (something I ought to be able to do at southwest.com, but of course cannot). Seeing it was a 73G, I sent them a note saying they are probably going to be OK. Then I read in another thread:
Hmm, I only see 73Gs serving that route non-stop; the four quickest direct or connecting flight options I checked were also listed as 73G flights. Apparently being scheduled on a 73G is no assurance that your flight will not be canceled; don't make the mistake of taking that shortcut to determine whether you'll flight will operate.

ftnoob

According to Operational Update for Monday, April 4, cancellations for today are expected to be down to 100.

SWABrian

I posted this on the other thread too,

UPDATED 10:30am CDT Monday, April 4 -- Southwest Airlines said this morning that 57 aircraft have been inspected and returned to service as part of an additional inspection program on a subset of the Southwest 737-300 fleet. The program was developed in cooperation with the Boeing Company. It has cancelled approximately 70 flights from its Monday schedule of 3,400+ scheduled departures. The airline continues to inspect aircraft and will put those with no findings back into service. The inspection involves a non-destructive test (NDT) in the form of Low-Frequency Eddy current of the aircraft skin. This test is designed to detect any subsurface fatigue in the skin that is not visible to the eye. The airline confirms that the additional inspections have identified three aircraft with the subsurface cracks. Those aircraft will remain out of service until appropriate repairs can be completed.

Customers should continue to check southwest.com before heading to the airport to get specifics on their particular flight. The airline is working to minimize the impact to Customers. Southwest expects to complete the inspections late Tuesday.

SWABrian

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES OPERATIONAL UPDATE

MONDAY, APRIL 1, 2011 3:30 P.M. CENTRAL TIME



DALLAS—April 4, 2011—Southwest Airlines said today as of 3:30 p.m. Central Time that it had inspected nearly 90 percent of the 79 Boeing 737-300 aircraft it voluntarily removed from service this weekend. The airline has completed inspection of 67 aircraft and returned 64 of them to service. The remaining three aircraft did have findings of subsurface cracks and will be out of service until Boeing recommends an appropriate repair.



The FAA said late Monday it will issue an emergency directive Tuesday related to the inspections we initiated over the weekend. With our knowledge of what the FAA has planned, we believe the 79 aircraft already identified for inspection will accomplish this directive for Southwest Airlines. The reference in the FAA’s statement to the 737-500 focuses on a particular set of airplanes that does not include Southwest aircraft.

johndunn2

It *looks* to be doing better but the sw.com still says issues until later tonight. Any had any major problems today?

ftnoob

Southwest Airlines Resumes Regularly Scheduled Operations

ETA: Please do not post any replies to this thread unless there are new operational delays related to the grounding of the 733s. Doing so will tend to cause undue angst for readers of this forum who have travel plans and may be too rushed to spend time reading incident discussion posts. Additional discussion should be posted to one of the other existing threads: