*is this odd? -vmann*/*
That's more than one in three flights canceled over the last three days.*/
http://patrioticactivist.com/2008/04/10/american-airlines-cancels-900-more-flights/
American Airlines cancels 900 more flights
<http://patrioticactivist.com/2008/04/10/american-airlines-cancels-900-more-flights/>
Posted on April 10, 2008 by John
American Airlines canceled more than 900 flights Thursday to fix faulty
wiring in hundreds of jets, marking the third straight day of mass
groundings as company executives offered profuse apologies and travel
vouchers to calm angry customers.
American, the nation's largest carrier, has now scrubbed more than 2,400
flights since Tuesday, when federal regulators warned that nearly half
its planes could violate a safety regulation designed to prevent fires.
That's more than one in three flights canceled over the last three days.
Daniel Garton, an executive vice president of American, said
cancellations could extend into Friday.
A return to normal operations depends on how quickly mechanics can
inspect and fix the wire bundles. Airline spokesman Tim Wagner said late
Wednesday afternoon that 60 planes had been cleared to fly, 119 were
being worked on, and 121 planes had not yet been inspected.
The fallout could be seen at airport ticket counters, where frustrated
customers bickered with American employees, and on the stock market,
where shares of American's parent company tumbled more than 11 percent
Wednesday.
American estimates that more than 100 passengers would have been on each
of those canceled flights. That means a quarter-million people have been
inconvenienced this week.
Airline executives said they thought they had fixed the wiring two weeks
ago, when they canceled more than 400 flights to inspect and in some
cases fix the shielding around the wires in their MD-80 aircraft.
But this week, Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, who have been
conducting stepped-up surveys of airline compliance with safety rules
called airworthiness directives, said 15 of 19 American jets they
examined flunked. That left the airline no choice but to ground all 300
of its MD-80s, the most common jet in American's 655-plane fleet.
"We have obviously failed to complete the airworthiness directive to the
precise standards that the FAA requires, and I take full responsibility
for that," Gerard Arpey, American's chairman and chief executive, said
at an industry event in California.
Click here for full story
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080410/ap_on_bi_ge/american_airlines_cancellations>