Baggage-weight errors hit Southwest

WASHINGTON — Federal officials have told Southwest Airlines to fix the way it calculates the weight of luggage loaded on flights after finding frequent mistakes during a yearlong investigation.

Southwest said Tuesday that it has made improvements in its methods for calculating the weight and balance of loads and that it isn’t facing enforcement action.

The airline said it voluntarily reported the issue to the Federal Aviation Administration last year.

The FAA investigation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper said internal FAA documents showed that the airline made frequent mistakes in calculations and luggage-loading practices that could cause errors when pilots compute their planes’ takeoff weight.

Dallas-based Southwest told The Associated Press that ground workers manually count and record how many bags go on each plane. The airline uses FAA-approved average weights for bags and passengers, then adds the actual weight of fuel and freight to calculate each load. Southwest said it also builds in a safety margin.

The FAA found cases in which the bag load was more than 1,000 pounds heavier than paperwork indicated, the

Journal reported.

Safety experts say pilots might respond incorrectly to engine emergencies if they had inaccurate information about the distribution of weight between front and rear cargo bays.

An FAA spokesman said the agency opened an investigation in February 2018. Since then, he said, the FAA has directed the airline to develop a comprehensive fix to the methods and processes it uses to determine baggage weight.