Safety in the Skies

By Jim Romeo

If anyone wonders about a direct relationship between customer service and aviation maintenance, they need to meet Ross MacArthur, a systems engineer in the Dallas, Texas-based Maintenance and Engineering Department for Southwest Airlines. He serves as the sole engineer responsible for fire protection and flight controls for the company’s Boeing 737 aircraft, a job encompassing some 388 planes. A simple personal credo and professional philosophy has emerged that says, in his words, "don’t spend even one moment wasting time on an issue that doesn’t make the aircraft either safer or cheaper to operate."

Top achievements for MacArthur include the evaluation and installation of Southwest’s cargo fire detection and suppression system aboard its aircraft, an effort that came about after the Value Jet crash in Port Everglades, Florida in 1996. As a new hire for the company in 2000, MacArthur walked into the implementation of such a system and successfully carried it out in just over a year. "It required a strong dose of program management to get the remaining, approximate 200-plus aircraft completed by the deadline" he recalls. "One lasting impression left with me, was that Southwest Airlines Maintenance and Engineering management would entrust full responsibility to essentially a new-hire. But this speaks tremendously well of the empowerment within the organization, which is essential for an organization to operate efficiently."

MacArthur’s aviation accomplishments took early roots as his upbringing was cultured with aviation influence. His father taught science at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, New Mexico after serving as an Army Air Corps meteorologist during World War II at places like Natal, Brazil, and Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada. He recalled watching waves of aircraft heading over to the battlefields of Europe. Ross’s home displays a photo of a Boeing aircraft his father flew in 1937. The youngest of three boys, he grew up reading excerpts from his grandfather’s diary, detailing his first flight in an airplane in 1927. The diary included scraps of paper from the pilot of the aircraft with notations such as "Utah Lake to the right (fresh water)" and "Those are wild horses."

In 1969 during the certification of the 747, Boeing had the prototype aircraft (RA001) in Roswell, New Mexico for flight testing. The company ran an ad in the local newspapers for volunteers to participate in the FAA-mandated cabin evacuation test. MacArthur’s entire family of five, including his mom, joined hundreds of other neighbors in climbing aboard the new aircraft and eventually jumping down the escape slides twice. When the family drove cross-country, they would detour to every aviation museum they could find along the way. And they never missed an air show at nearby Walker Air Force Base.

MacArthur went on to receive a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1983 and was offered a job right out of school with Boeing Military Aircraft Company (BMAC) in Wichita, Kansas. "I still laugh when I think about the fact this job offer letter stated I was to be hired to work in the area of ‘B-52 wing, body, and empennage design’ he recalls." I had to go to a dictionary to see what ‘empennage’ meant."

So what does MacArthur believe to be the challenge in the aviation maintenance community today? "Communication," he retorts. He views his daily goal as delivering understandable and correct answers to the mechanics of Southwest Airlines. "If my phone rings in the middle of the night from Maintenance Control or a maintenance base, at the most basic level, it means I failed to push out the information a mechanic needed to properly perform his job," he explains in a responsible way. "It’s because I didn’t do my job right in the first place. The next day I will begin analyzing what the mechanic needed and how I’m going the get the information into his hands for the next time."

Such an approach has led to accomplishments for MacArthur that prompted Jim Sokol, Southwest's vice president of maintenance and engineering to describe him as someone who "provides outstanding customer service to all his customers." Southwest may be the no-frills airline that doesn’t give you a meal on its flights, but you can bet their Boeing 737 planes are safe with Ross MacArthur the engineer in charge of their maintenance.

Jim Romeo is a freelance writer based in Chesapeake, Virginia.