"Discount air carrier Southwest Airlines flew thousands of passengers on aircraft that federal inspectors said were 'unsafe' as recently as [March 2007]."
Uh huh. Compare the incident records of Southwest and any major carrier, and then get back to us.
The real cost/safety tradeoff in air travel is between national carriers and the rebadged regional carriers that do the short-hop fights for the nationals. Southwest doesn't have any such arrangements, but all the majors do.
Second, are you claiming that because no accidents happened to occur, that Southwest was in the right to fly passengers in planes that safety inspectors deemed unsafe or which were two and a half years overdue for an inspection? Or perhaps your point is that over-all, Southwest has a better track record than other airlines, to which I must ask, what is the probability that Southwest's spotless record (in terms of deaths) actually indicates that they're safer than the other airlines, and what is the probability that it's just dumb luck? I would be quite interested in the answer to this question, though it seems airline crashes are both fairly rare, even for airlines with poor safety records.
The point is, while I'm certainly not saying that their safety record is meaningless, I think it would be foolish to overlook things such as flying planes which have either failed inspection or which are years overdue to be inspected, especially given the low number of data points in the form of commercial airline crashes.
With enplaned passengers at 101.9 million/year, it's not dumb luck that defines a safety record, but basic probability.
We must also consider the possibility that there is a bias against Southwest by the safety inspectors, and that perhaps Southwests safety record is a more accurate representation of how safe they are.
"Boeing Inc., the plane's manufacturer, which was contacted when the problems arose, said that at no time were the cracks unsafe, Kelly said. "Cracks do occur. That's why we do inspections.""
Also
""In this particular situation, we identified a gap in our documentation. We voluntarily reported that to the FAA. We worked out with the FAA how to fix that problem, and we fixed it," he said on CNN's "American Morning.""
But you know what? I'll concede, that was a huge blunder on Southwest's part. However, they found it in a safety audit and took all appropriate actions. Still, that should never happen.
Are you implying the current crop of low cost carriers are somehow "unsafe"? You would be very wrong (at least in the US).
Also, such a carrier exists. It's called Jet Blue.