FAA fails to resolve persistent issues with SkyWest maintenance, audit says

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By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration has failed to resolve persistent issues with SkyWest Airlines’ maintenance practices that its inspectors worried could contribute to an accident, a government report said on Thursday.

SkyWest is the largest U.S. regional airline and operates flights for United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.

An audit by the Transportation Department Office of Inspector General said FAA safety inspectors have been unable to fully resolve issues relating to SkyWest’s remote return-to-service maintenance practices for more than four years.

Under this practice introduced in 2018, centrally located maintenance controllers at SkyWest’s headquarters in Utah oversee SkyWest mechanics or contract mechanics performing maintenance at the aircraft’s location, the report said.

The audit said FAA inspectors found that SkyWest was “inappropriately deferring maintenance for minimum equipment list items, dispatching aircraft for flights without required inspections, and using pilots to perform maintenance tasks not approved in SkyWest’s maintenance manuals.”

SkyWest said it was committed to maintaining the highest standards of safety and compliance across all aspects of its operations. It said it had also taken numerous actions to help the FAA “identify and resolve any issues in either of our processes to better support SkyWest’s safety efforts.”

Since 2021, the FAA has been working to resolve 32 issues at SkyWest. The report said at the time of the inspector general’s analysis, the FAA had resolved 26 issues but noncompliance persisted with SkyWest’s remote return-to-service maintenance practices.

Even though several FAA inspectors identified similar systemic hazard issues, the agency did not initiate a systemic risk review until two years after issues were found.

The report said FAA inspectors were frustrated their efforts were being delayed “and concerned that the airline’s remote maintenance practices could contribute to an accident.”

The FAA said it agreed with six of the seven recommendations and planned to implement them by July 2026. The FAA said it also agreed delays in submissions can hinder safety assessments.

In March 2020, an accident in New York revealed pilots were performing unauthorized maintenance procedures, the report said. In 2023, remote return-to-service maintenance actions may have resulted in flights that did not meet FAA safety requirements, it added.

The report cited an aircraft released for flight without a required operational altimeter and another flight that included an improperly deferred fuel fault advisory message.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Jamie Freed)