Southwest Airlines starts flying the first aircraft with secondary cockpit obstacles
David Shepards
(Reuters) – Southern Airlines began flying its first aircraft on Friday, a flight deck designed to prevent invasions.
The airline said the plane was delivered in recent days the Boeing 737 MAX 8-8 was brought to Denver from Phoenix on Friday afternoon.
The pilots’ Federation believes that secondary obstacles – the attack on 11 September 2001 exposed the risk of insufficient flight detection protection – are crucial to aviation safety.
The flight is a milestone marking the beginning of the safety features of the new U.S. commercial airline fleet in the coming years.
Boeing and Airbus told Reuters they have begun shipping aircraft in the Federal Aviation Administration Croumpuly, which was announced in 2023, which took effect on Monday.
Last month, the FAA agreed to provide airlines with obstacles to newly shipped aircraft until late July 2026. Most major airlines have told the FAA that they plan to take advantage of the expansion rather than start using the barrier immediately.
Southwest chose to start complying with the new aircraft immediately and expects to adopt about 25 Boeing aircraft this year, which will have obstacles.
“We felt we could finish it and put it into production as soon as the plane was ready,” said Justin Jones, executive vice president of operations at Southwest Airlines.
After hijacking four U.S. aircraft on September 11, 2001, the FAA adopted standards for driving deck safety to make it resist forced invasions and unauthorized entry.
The FAA rules require aircraft manufacturers to install a second physical barrier on new aircraft used in U.S. commercial passenger service, but do not require modifications to existing aircraft. Aircraft manufacturers without FAA barrier certification have not been complied yet.
(Reported by David Shepards; Edited by Leslie Adler and Chris Sanders)
