Following a string of high-profile “safety events” in recent months, Southwest is forcing its pilots to attend additional training. Bloomberg reports that the training sessions will begin as early as November, lasting into 2025.
The requirement extends to all of the airline’s nearly 11,000 pilots with training sessions taking place for one day at its Dallas headquarters. A company memo cited by the news outlet said the training sessions are intended to discuss “specific events and working together as a flight crew to appropriately manage risks.”
In April, a Southwest Boeing 737 MAX 8 dropped within 400 feet of the Pacific Ocean near Lihue, Hawaii. Later, two separate Southwest flights received low altitude alerts, descending within hundreds of feet over Oklahoma City and Tampa while still several miles from the respective airfields.
Another Southwest flight from Portland, Maine to Baltimore took off from a closed runway in June.
In the same memo, the airline acknowledged the spike in incidents, adding that “meaningful work is underway to address these events and advance our safety.”
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently conducting a safety audit on the carrier, similar to what United faced earlier this year.
