Harvard Business Publishing

Were you among the hundreds of thousands of passengers recently stranded when American Airlines grounded more than 3,000 flights in less than a week? If yes, I can tell you who to credit, yes, credit -- Bobby Boutris and Douglas Peters.

Never heard of them? Well, you should have, for they have done no less than turn the American airline industry on its head. They forced airlines -- not only American, but also Southwest, United, and Delta -- to inspect their fleets more carefully and completely than they had in years. They convinced Rep. James Oberstar, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to demand publicly "a change of attitude at the highest levels" of the Federal Aviation Commission. And they led Mary Peters (no relation to Douglas), who heads the FAA's parent agency, the Department of Transportation, to appoint a commission of senior experts charged with improving the FAA's "safety culture."

Seems this newfound fixation on the health and welfare of America's flying public happened overnight, for the events I describe all took place in the last few weeks. But this story goes five years back. In 2003, Douglas Peters, who had been hired by the FAA as a data-evaluation program manager, clashed with his manager, principal maintenance inspector Douglas Gawadzinski, over how much to penalize Southwest for a safety violation. A year later Bobby Boutris had his own run-in with Gawadzinski, this time over the issue of how harshly to treat Southwest for discrepancies in maintenance paperwork. In both cases Gawadzinski took it on himself to downplay the importance of the infraction and to soft-pedal the penalty against the airline. The pattern continued. Repeatedly, Boutris and Peters tried to draw their superiors' attention to flaws in Southwest's planes and policies; repeatedly their superiors ignored or dismissed too lightly their concerns.

For taking the time and trouble to do the right thing -- for confronting head on a breakdown in the FAA's oversight of Southwest -- Boutris and Peters paid a price. At various points Boutris's traveling privileges were suspended, he was cut out of meetings, his cubicle was trashed, his Greek accent was mocked, he was charged by an anonymous source with sneaking a weapon on an aircraft, and he received a death threat in the mail. Peters was less persistently persecuted. But at a Congressional hearing held earlier this month, he could not testify without choking up while telling lawmakers about how a former manager had come to his office to warn that his job could be jeopardized by his actions.

The story started by Boutris and Peters is by no means over. Herb Kelleher, Southwest's co-founder and executive chairman, issued a public apology for mistakes made, and American's CEO, Gerard Arpey, also apologized, saying that he took "personal responsibility" for the airline's safety compliance problems. But now American has decided to push back, charging the FAA with overcompensating for past laxity by unfairly changing the rules for how airlines must comply with safety orders.

Moreover while Bobby Boutris and Douglas Peters have morphed from pariahs to paragons, while they benefit from being protected by federal whistleblower laws, and while Oberstar has now gone on record saying they were right all along ("The Committee's investigation uncovered a pattern of regulatory abuse and widespread regulatory lapses..."), the example they set is not altogether heartening. Their story ends well, and we are the beneficiaries of their competence and courage. But like most other whistleblowers they found telling truth to power to be dreadfully difficult -- which is why most of the rest of us are afraid to do so.

For more on the airlines see:
Assessing American's Apology
British Airways' Terminal 5 Disaster
Delta-Northwest's Interactive Public Relations
American Airlines Needs a Newsroom