Southwest Says Jets Can Fly While Overdue Inspections Performed

Southwest Airlines Co. said it will continue to fly 128 Boeing Co. 737 jets as it performs safety inspections on them over the next five days.

On Tuesday Dallas-based Southwest said it would have to take almost a fifth of its fleet out of service for inspections after alerting U.S. regulators that it missed checks on the planes’ rudders.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration later told Southwest that it could continue to fly the planes as it performs inspections on hydraulic systems, which serve as the final backup to two primary levels of equipment, and the lowest of three intervals for the checks. Southwest said it would result in only 15 flight cancellations for Wednesday and that all of the 128 planes were only grounded for about six hours.

“The airline is anticipating very minimal impact to their operation as they complete the remaining checks,” Southwest said in a statement.