Southwest bookings fall after accident

DALLAS — Inspections of jet engines at Southwest Airlines turned up one cracked fan blade last year but none since last week’s deadly accident that investigators believe started when a weakened blade broke off during flight.

Southwest executives said Thursday that they have checked more than 25,000 fan blades since 2016 for signs of metal fatigue and that the remaining 10,000 will be inspected by midMay.

They also said that bookings have dropped since the April 17 accident and will cost Southwest between $50 million and $100 million.

Last-minute trips fell, but so did bookings into May. Southwest canceled some flights to send planes for inspections, and it stopped advertising on television and social media. President Tom Nealon said the airline’s advertising “has a lot of fun, and we just don’t think it’s appropriate yet to bring that back.”

Southwest disclosed the results of engine inspections and the downturn in bookings as it reported a 22 percent increase in first-quarter profit, to $463 million. The results were in line with Wall Street expectations.

The financial figures were overshadowed by the emergency landing of one of Southwest’s planes last week in Philadelphia after an engine blew apart, knocking out a window and killing Jennifer Riordan, a bank executive and mother of two from Albuquerque, N.M. “It was a dark day,” CEO Gary Kelly said at the beginning of a conference call with analysts and reporters.

Southwest has 35,500 fan blades for its fleet of more than 700 Boeing 737 jets.

Since last week’s accident, 8,500 more blades have been checked, and none was found to show signs of metal fatigue, or microscopic cracks, Chief Operating Officer Mike Van de Ven said.

Analysts believe that any loss in bookings because of the accident will be temporary.

Southwest shares ended down 1 percent Thursday at $53.30