Cancelling a Thousand Flights Instead of Maintaining Airliners
April 9, 2008
American Cancels 1,000 More Flights for Inspection
By JEFF BAILEY
Passengers on American Airlines found themselves facing confusion and long delays on Wednesday after the carrier canceled more than 1,000 flights, as its efforts to inspect and in some cases reattach wiring bundles in the wheel wells of its 300-plane fleet of MD-80s dragged on.
More cancellations are expected Thursday.
Moving to head off any loss of confidence in its safety procedures, American said it planned to hire an outside contractor to review its compliance with airworthiness directives from the Federal Aviation Administration.
“This work will ensure that all procedures strictly adhere to the technical elements of every directive so American can avoid this type of schedule disruption in the future,” the carrier said in a written statement.
The F.A.A. grants airlines much autonomy to fix and inspect planes, reviewing and auditing work after the fact. But in recent weeks it became clear that some airlin…