CNN News: Southwest grounds 44 planes

One year ago, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found that Southwest Airlines failed to meet inspection requirements. More recently, the airlines put three employees on administrative leave and began conducting an internal investigation of allegations that it flew aircrafts without proper inspections. This triggered curiosity in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and investigation of Southwest Airlines immediately commenced. Furthermore, the FAA is seeking a $10.2 million civil penalty against the airline which allegedly flew some airplanes for 30 months past government inspection deadlines. On March 12, 44 planes were pulled from their usual route and inspected, causing cancellations of about 4% of the day’s flights. Questions remain as to why an airline would put so many passengers in danger and why FAA managers, who knew about the lapse in safety at Southwest, would decide to allow the airline to conduct the safety checks on a slower schedule. However, the answer seems to lead back to the fact that taking aircraft out of service would disrupt Southwest Airlines’ flight schedule.

In class, we have been talking about information cascades, a situation in which every person makes a choice based on his own private signal (High or Low) and signals from others. Every person’s decision is expected to be rational; however, even if all actors have correct information, the first two actors may have high signals for the wrong information and cause an information cascade towards the incorrect choice. This in effect, is a similar concept to the psychological concept of “groupthink.” In groupthink, members of a group try to minimize conflict by reaching consensus, often without critically analyzing and testing their ideas. People may feel intimidated to share their thoughts or may just want to “get the job done”- often resulting in hazardous decision making.

FAA’s action involving Southwest Airline’s breach of security is a perfect example of an information cascade that turned into groupthink and eventually ended up with very dangerous consequences.

Flight cancellations are an airlines biggest fear. Each cancellation means angry fliers, overwhelmed staff, and of course, money. It is therefore no surprise that Southwest Airlines would forgo flight inspections to avoid flight cancellations and delays. There is no doubt that at the headquarters there was a struggle between meeting inspection needs and keeping up with business needs. Three employees have been put on administrative leave as a result of this struggle. However, psychology and groupthink show that whether or not these employees actually agreed with the decision to keep flying the planes, in the interest of minimizing conflict, they would feel that the best decision is to allow the aircrafts to fly and, each of them would avoid speaking up, even in the interest of safety. This is where information cascade comes in. As each employee begins to agree with the idea to let the airlines keep flying the planes, by the third employee, an information cascade would begin in which all employees would agree with the idea. In effect, all planes could be flown without any employee ever saying anything – and a simple psychological trend could cause a cascade of events that jeopardize the safety of thousands of airplane passengers everyday.