Southwest Airlines and the FAA are currently in hot water with the US government, and air travellers in general, over concerns about Southwest's aircraft inspection processes and how well the Federal Aviation Administration is doing their policing job. They are currently in the midst of congressional hearings to determine what went wrong, who was at fault, and all of the usual questions. The key points seem to be:
1. Southwest Airlines did not follow inspection regulations (at least not to the letter)
2. Some ATA inspectors seem to have not policed the inspections as they should have.
3. There are suggestions that Southwest Airlines attempted to influence the inspection process.
4. There are claims that people who tried to complain about problems or make protests were suppressed and possibly disciplined or fired as a result.
So far, there's a statement about this issue on the Southwest Airlines homepage and on their blog (read the comments).
A search on Southwest Airlines for the past 24 hours using Google Blog Search provides 386 hits. Haven't read them all, but the first few pages look pretty negative.
Southwest Airlines seemed to be enthusiastic and active in the use of their blog to promote their company and get the whole "conversational marketing" thing going. In their own way, they seemed to be trying to use social media to engage customers.
So far, I have to give them a minor amount of credit for leaving commenting open on their blog so people can vent. That does not excuse shoddy business and safety practices at all, but they aren't completely retreating into Fortress Southwest either.
Will Southwest respond as a typical publically-traded company in this kind of potentially huge disaster? Will they use social media to try to work their way out of this jam? Will they collapse completely?
Here's an opportunity for a large, well known company to use Web 2.0 as a part of their recovery strategy. Will they seize the opportunity?
Could social media help the FAA or the government in general during this controversy?
Broadcasting Brain, where I broadcast from my brain about communications and social media.