The Department of Labor ordered AirTran to rehire a pilot who was fired for raising safety concerns, according to a statement from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The Orlando, Florida-based airline—since May a subsidiary of Southwest Airlines—will also have to pay the pilot more than $1 million in back wages. The amount includes interest and compensatory damages.
OSHA did not name the pilot, citing a policy to avoid naming people involved in whistleblower cases.
“Airline workers must be free to raise safety and security concerns, and companies that diminish those rights through intimidation or retaliation must be held accountable,” said OSHA Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels in a statement on Jan. 17. “Airline safety is of vital importance, not only to the workers, but to the millions of Americans who use our airways.”
According to the pilot’s complaint, the airline grounded him on Aug. 23, 2007 after he reported multiple mechanical problems with airplanes. The airline described it as a “sudden spike in the pilot’s mechanical malfunction reports, or PIREPS,” according to the OSHA announcement.
On Sept. 6, 2007, AirTran held a 17-minute hearing on the matter, and fired the pilot seven days later. AirTran claimed it fired the worker for refusing to answer a question about the multiple reports. According to OSHA, the pilot did not refuse to answer questions, but cooperated appropriately with the investigation. It found that AirTran fired the pilot to retaliate for reporting the safety problems.
OSHA found the pilot should have been protected from retaliation for reporting the safety problems. OSHA’s Whistleblower Protection Program investigated and found that AirTran violated the “whistleblower provision of the ‘Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century,’ known as AIR21,” according to the OSHA announcement.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration do not rank airlines according to their safety records, though they do investigate accidents.
Southwest Airlines, based in Dallas, Texas, attracted attention and criticism in 2008 when several older Boeing 737s developed potentially dangerous cracks. It was accused of lax inspection practices.
