The Occurrence of the Southwest Airlines Scandal Research Paper

The Occurrence of the Southwest Airlines Scandal - Research Paper Example Southwest Airlines Co is an US-based public company headquartered at Dallas, Texas. It was founded in the year 1967 (Yahoo Finance, 2012). Originally it was known as Air Southwest. Later it was renamed as Southwest Airlines and commenced its business operations in the year 1971. The shares of the company are traded in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with the ticker symbol â€Å"LUV†. Southwest Airlines is engaged in the business of providing scheduled transportation for its customers through the air in the United States. It started its business operations with three of the Boeing 737 aircraft which served the three cities in Texas namely, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. It managed to expand its business on a large scale mainly due to its acquisition of AirTran Holdings in the year 2011 and as at December 31, 2011, the company operated a total of 698 aircraft that includes 88 Boeing 7171s and 610 Boeing 737s (Southwest Airlines Co., 2012a). AirTran Airways is now operated a s one of the wholly-owned subsidiaries of Southwest Airlines. The company is regarded to be one of the lowest fare domestic airlines in the United States and is committed to providing best Customer Services in the airline's industry (Southwest Airlines Co., 2012b). Recently in the year 2008, Southwest Airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) were accused of presenting false safety reports. The safety reports prepared by Southwest Airlines were meant to comply with the safety regulations related to inspection of its jet aircraft. This falsification of safety reports by Southwest Airlines was confirmed by the United States House Committee.