Aviation

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/55224256

Southwest Airlines Cuts 26 Routes From Busiest Airport in the World [Atlanta]

Southwest Airlines (WN) has significantly reduced its presence at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), cutting 26 routes when comparing schedules through June 2026 against those from July 2026 onward, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

Despite these cuts, Southwest remains a major operator at ATL, ranking third for scheduled departures behind Delta Air Lines (DL) and Frontier Airlines (F9). The pullback reflects a broader network strategy as the carrier shifts away from point-to-point flying toward high-density stations.

The majority of the participating teams arrived on special flights, either on planes featuring country-specific liveries or on charter flights operated by foreign airlines. In this post, we take a look at those flights to the United States, Mexico or Canada, according to our database.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) today announced the launch of “Save a Life, Not a Bag”, a passenger safety campaign urging travelers not to take cabin baggage during an aircraft evacuation.

Supported by aviation safety regulators including the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the campaign reinforces what passengers must do when instructed to evacuate for their safety and the safety of all on board: follow crew instructions, leave all baggage behind, and move quickly to the nearest usable exit.

The quick-thinking pilots of a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 with 129 passengers and six crew members on board averted catastrophe as it was coming in to land at Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) on Saturday morning after air traffic controllers cleared an American Airlines to take off in its path.

The GPS system on a small medical plane that crashed into a mountainside last month in New Mexico malfunctioned because the military was jamming that signal throughout the area at the time although pilots had been warned to expect that, according to federal investigators.

"Southwest Airlines is aware of an event involving two of our aircraft at Rhode Island T. F. Green International Airport yesterday evening. We are investigating further and will be thoroughly inspecting the two aircraft. In the meantime, we have reaccommodated the affected Customers. Nothing is more important to Southwest Airlines than the Safety of our Employees and our Customers," wrote Laura Swift, Southwest PR Team.

A little over a year ago, Sen. Tim Sheehy floated an audacious proposal to reshape the way the federal government fights wildfires. It called for expanding the use of private planes and helicopters to quickly attack blazes while also eliminating the U.S. Forest Service’s rigorous airworthiness inspections for those aircraft.

The idea stood to benefit Sheehy, a Montana Republican, personally. Before running for Congress, he founded and ran an aerial firefighting company called Bridger Aerospace, which is known for its scoopers, aircraft built to retrieve water from lakes or oceans and drop it onto fires. Since 2021, the Forest Service has paid Bridger more than $235 million for use of its scoopers, according to public records.

Sheehy’s ownership of Bridger is well known, but what hasn’t been reported is that the same month the proposal leaked, a Forest Service inspector had discovered a crack in a wing of an aircraft Bridger had presented as ready for service. The scooper had failed the very inspection Sheehy sought to eliminate...

“Very seldom do you find a crack in a major component,” said Paul Markowitz, a former national aviation maintenance manager for the Forest Service. Detecting such problems is the reason the Forest Service operates an airworthiness program, he added: “It’s to keep people alive.”...

...“Why can’t we be inspecting ourselves?”...

Since 2010, when the Forest Service implemented its current airworthiness program, the accident rate for aircraft it owns or contracts has plummeted. Between 1993 and 2010, it reported 85 accidents that killed 63 people — an average of nearly four deaths per year. Between 2011 and 2023, the last year for which data is available, the agency reported just 17 accidents and seven fatalities...

...In January 2024, Bridger presented its first scooper as ready for service, only to have a Forest Service inspector find issues with the engine and electronics...

In early April 2025, Bridger presented two scoopers for carding, saying they were ready for service. During one of these assessments, a Forest Service inspector found a crack in a wing...

Context: https://wwmt.com/news/local/waco-aircrafts-closing-cease-manufacturing-maintenance-services-drimor-centennial-junker-airplane-production-battle-creek-western-michigan-economy-infrastructure

A bit more context: this was the direct result of mismanagement and misaligned goals, allegedly, in my opinion.

If there’s interest, are there groups I should talk to about resurrecting this?

e: I’m picturing a sort of open-source effort to save this history. And, weirdly, this all overlaps with my skillset.

It was not immediately clear if the drone actually collided with the aircraft. The airline’s maintenance team “found no damage after thoroughly inspecting the aircraft,” United Airlines said in a statement to The Times.