Southwest on Friday flew its first passenger aircraft with secondary cockpit doors, a safety feature the FAA will require on all new commercial aircraft by August 2026.
The airline confirmed that the airplane, a recently delivered Boeing 737 MAX 8, entered revenue service with a flight from Phoenix to Denver on Friday afternoon.
All new aircraft delivered to Southwest will come with the feature already installed, the carrier said. The airline is not retrofitting its current aircraft with the devices because, under the FAA’s rules, retrofitting is not required, and because a retrofit option has not yet been certified by regulators.
Southwest is among the first U.S. airlines to install secondary cockpit doors, which were first proposed in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The FAA initially gave the carriers under its jurisdiction until August 2025 to install the barriers, but trade group Airlines for America lobbied for a delay due to certification holdups, and because flight crews had not been trained on how to use the doors.
A4A asked to push the deadline back by two years, and the FAA ultimately settled on a one-year extension.
Southwest said it moved to put in the doors now rather than wait because it wants to be proactive about the safety of passengers and crew.
The timeline for installing secondary cockpit doors has been a contentious issue for airlines and for pilot unions, who have long supported the safety measure. The Air Line Pilots Association, which represents about 80,000 pilots in the U.S. and Canada, criticized Airlines for America for asking for a delay, and slammed the FAA for agreeing to one.
