American Air cancels 850 flights for inspections

Tabnabs

American Air cancels 850 flights for inspections
9 Apr, 2008, 2207 hrs IST, REUTERS
CHICAGO: American Airlines canceled 850 flights, or nearly 40 per cent of its daily schedule on Wednesday, stranding thousands of passengers and creating chaos at the nation's busiest airports as it conducted safety inspections of its MD-80 aircraft.

The cancellations by the No. 1 US airline, a unit of AMR Corp, follow 460 cancellations on Tuesday and hundreds of cancellations two weeks ago, also for inspections.

An airline spokesman said there were about 30 MD-80s in service on Wednesday morning and more were expected to resume flying later in the day.

"The situation is fluid though, and that is why we have gone ahead and canceled the 850 (flights)," spokesman Tim Wagner said.

"We do not know at this point if that number will climb, but it might." Shares of AMR were down nearly nearly 9 percent at midday, outpacing losses by stocks in other US carriers. The Amex airline index was down 3.7 percent.

American said in a statement on Tuesday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) raised new concerns about recent wiring inspections of the narrowbody MD-80 aircraft that resulted in canceled flights two weeks ago. MD-80s make up nearly half of AMR's fleet. The inspections are part of an industrywide FAA review of airline compliance with agency safety directives.

Several carriers have grounded aircraft as a result of the audit, which was triggered by inspection and maintenance lapses at Southwest Airlines Co. The American inspections relate to a 2006 FAA order to ensure that wiring in MD-80 wheel wells is properly installed and secured.

STRANDED

The cancellation angered travelers at several airports where agents struggled to book passengers on other flights. Dallas, which saw 208 cancellations, was the hardest hit city, followed by Chicago, with 138 cancellations.

At Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the airline offered vouchers to travelers willing to take a later flight. Meanwhile, an airline employee offered orange juice and snacks to mollify angry passengers. Terry Trippler, travel expert at TripplerTravel.com, said the inspections did not raise safety concerns for him.

Rather, the disruption itself is a bigger worry. The airline should have performed the inspections right the first time, he said. "Somebody at American should be on the unemployment line," Trippler said. "Do you know how many people they're disrupting? This is unbelievable."

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/International_Business/%20American_Air_cancels_850_flights_for_inspections/articleshow/2939009.cms

pclancy

LOL @ "mollify angry passengers", is that a real verb now?