For those of you new to this story, Southwest disclosed an error in their maintenance that allowed a total of 46 aircraft to exceed the required deadline for fuselage crack testing. The FAA dropped a staggering $10 million fine as a result of the lapse, which has sent the Southwest PR department into a frenzy.

Here’s my problem: As far as we know, the FAA did not catch Southwest doing anything illegal. In fact, Southwest caught their own mistake and disclosed it to the FAA. This is highly encouraged in the aviation industry to identify areas where current policies may be lacking, and to share information with other airlines in a collaborative attempt at improving safety. It seems someone at the FAA got a little bit media hungry on this one as they stepped outside protocol to bring the hammer down on Southwest. $10 million is a drop in the bucket compared to the damage they’ve done to the FAA. Even worse, the FAA has damaged it’s own self-disclosure program by making such a public spectacle of something Southwest originally brought to the FAA’s attention. I’m not saying the errors should have been hidden. Quite the contrary, its the sharing and collaboration of this information that makes our aviation system one of the safest in the world. But the FAA should not have publicly embarrassed Southwest for the error, rather they should have approached it as an opportunity to close a gap in airline safety.

The unfortunate side-effect of this could very easily be a hesitation for airlines to self-disclose errors to the FAA in fear of being made a public spectacle. This isn’t to say Southwest would have gotten off scott-free, but it does still provide incentive for airlines to publicly disclose their errors without being publicly ridiculed by the agency from who they’re asking help to fix the problem.

Pilots also have a self-disclosure type of system called the ASRS (Aviation Safety Reporting System) funded by NASA with the true intent on gathering information on possibly unsafe situations with the intent of keeping them from happening again. This system has been considered a success by all standards, and proves the safety benefits of a self-disclosure system. If safety really is the FAA’s first priority, they need to be more proactive in pursuing that rather than punishment.

But then again, the FAA did just get $10 million and a lot of TV-time.

The airplane geek community (of which I am a proud card-carrying member) is all a’ twitter about a new job posting located at Southwest.com. The position is for a Safety and Federal Aiport Security Department manager, International Security Operations.

I’ll be the first to express skepticism about the conclusions being drawn that this posting is a sign of international operations at Southwest, but it did get me thinking about Southwest’s international prospects., So I immediately put the staff here at the Airline Empires HQ on the story. (AE “staff” and “HQ” consist of myself and my loyal German Shephard, Indy in what used to be my office, but now doubles as a guest bedroom because the wife said we just “had” to have a guest bedroom more than I “had” to have an office once the baby arrives.)

Why would Southwest open international routes?For an airline the size of Southwest with the name “Southwest” and a base of operations in said region of the States, it’s quite a feat that there are no SWA routes into Mexico. It makes sense that the lowest-fare carrier in the country remain exclusively domestic to capitalize on those low fare markets. But Southwest is no longer the lowest-fare carrier, and at times i even find it difficult to consider them “low-fare” with the new ultra-low fare money losers….err, I mean airlines, that are emerging.

A national border does present a considerable obstacle for automobile traffic, which Southwest has always found itself in competition with. It seems very natural for Southwest to bask in the higher yields of Mexico traffic, the majority of which originates from or is destined to the Southwest U.S. Besides, after their success in Denver it only makes sense to continue the frontal attack on Frontier and hit the Mexican markets. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Flip and the gang painted on Frontier’s tails, but being nice to your competition is not one of the prerequisites for making money in this industry.

As Southwest grows, it is gradually finding itself with fewer and fewer untapped domestic markets. They were probably licking their chops in Dallas over the prospect of moving into Cincinnati after a DL/NW merger, but with the apparent death of that deal makes matters worse. Something will eventually have to give to find new markets, and I don’t think it’s going to involve smaller aircraft.

Since I just lost the attention of the other half of my staff due to what was apparently an unresistable bouncing ball, it’s time to wrap this up. This job posting is most likely not related to any new international operations at Southwest, but don’t be suprised if it happens anyway. Regardless, I still consider Southwest’s venture into Mexico inevitble, and I don’t think there are more than a handful of people in Dallas who would disagree with me.

But what do I know? I thought Betamax was a sure bet.