I am sure that by now you are aware that Southwest Airlines had to ground 44 planes for further inspection after rumors that the company failed various safety inspections. While I will not go into the details of the case, watch the CNN interview with Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly for that. I would like to make reference to Southwest Airlines’ blog “Nuts about Southwest”, whose authors has been posting information on the subject since March 6th.

A total of three posts have been published since, receiving more than 230 comments from customers…obviously there is concern, and some even rant on about what a horrible airline Southwest is. But after scanning the comments, overall I noticed a very supportive and positive reaction.

For example:

“I DO believe you. After much frustration with United, I transferred a couple of years ago to Southwest on parallel runs. After retiring over a year ago, I still have 600,000+ miles banked on United. But I’ll take Southwest any day.

I have carefully watched your pilots’ pre-flight inspections and despite the occasional levity of your crews, I have nearly absolute faith in them.

Beyond that I most appreciate the fact that immediately on learning of this error you reported it to the FAA and Boeing. The naysayers can say what they want. I still think that Southwest is the best managed airline in the business. And by the way, my wife will be on a 7 am flight to Oakland tomorrow and will fly to Sacramento on Tuesday!

Posted by: Len Frank | March 7, 2008 at 12:12 am”

And there are plenty more like this - the majority of negative comments are “pulverized” by customers supporting their airline. It seems to me that Southwest Airlines has done the right and honest thing: kept a clear and open conversation with their passengers. Further more, this has enabled Southwest customers to become the airline’s most important spokes person.