Friday, Sept. 26, 2003
Posted 7:30 a.m. ET - Friday
Bad week for discount airlines
Ben's airport delay updates
FRIDAY: Fog slows Pittsburgh flights
First there was the privacy flap at JetBlue . . . now this from Southwest Airlines. A fired airport worker claims that Southwest Airlines relied on untrained cleaning crews to conduct security searches of its planes after September 2001. Loretta Fullington made the charge, and said she was fired by a Southwest contractor last year after complaining that many planes at Las Vegas' McCarran Airport received the token searches for hidden weapons — sometimes no search at all. Fullington was a fast-food manager before getting a crew leader's job at AVSEC Services, which cleans Southwest's planes overnight at the Las Vegas airport. "I had no clue what I was looking for," she said. "We were cleaners. I found it strange that all of a sudden I was doing security searches." Southwest denies the charge. USA TODAY/AP
Posted 7:30 a.m. ET - Friday
Bad week for discount airlines
Ben's airport delay updates
FRIDAY: Fog slows Pittsburgh flights
First there was the privacy flap at JetBlue . . . now this from Southwest Airlines. A fired airport worker claims that Southwest Airlines relied on untrained cleaning crews to conduct security searches of its planes after September 2001. Loretta Fullington made the charge, and said she was fired by a Southwest contractor last year after complaining that many planes at Las Vegas' McCarran Airport received the token searches for hidden weapons — sometimes no search at all. Fullington was a fast-food manager before getting a crew leader's job at AVSEC Services, which cleans Southwest's planes overnight at the Las Vegas airport. "I had no clue what I was looking for," she said. "We were cleaners. I found it strange that all of a sudden I was doing security searches." Southwest denies the charge. USA TODAY/AP
