NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com)—American Airlines is canceling 200 flights or nearly 10% of its schedule for Wednesday as it performs more detailed inspections of a key aircraft model.

A statement from American said that the inspections pertain to questions raised by the FAA and American safety officials about how a certain bundle of wires is secured to the MD-80 aircraft. Airline spokesman Tim Wagner said that while the airline has not grounded any aircraft, the several hours needed to perform each inspection required the flight cancellations.

I saw on the news earlier today that Delta grounded some flights too.. MD-80’s and 90’s I guess.. it’s a little sad.. I start up working again this week after being gone for 3 weeks.. it’ll be interesting how many people get reacommadated on us..

Just when the airlines were starting to turn things around, this stuff happens.  How do these inspections come up so quickly?  Was there an incident?

No incident,just the cat fighting at the FAA that brought out the missed inspection from feb 2007 that southwest reported on it self.  A year later after inspections completed, huge fine.  Have to justify themselves on why brought it up a year later I guess.  So checking on everyone know.  Or maybe the just need the money and decided to get it from all airlines and the trees in their backyard.  Just guessing and being petty.  But it will be interesting to see if they just fine SW or all the airlines who are forced to do these inspections.

Whatever initiated the inspections scared USAir as well.  We grounded four 757’s here in PHX.  Only about 45mins., but still it messed up the entire day.  Don’t know why or who started it, but it was really weird.

Here’s another airline with grounding flts due to inspections:

United Airlines temporarily grounded 11 percent of its fleet and cancelled 31 flights Wednesday while it tested dozens of Boeing 777s to make sure components of a cargo fire suppression system were operating effectively. The inspections are the latest to affect the U.S. airline industry and its passengers, roiled by a series of similar moves in recent weeks as carriers review their maintenance records in an atmosphere of increased regulatory scrutiny. The Chicago-based airline said testing would be done on 52 777s over a period of 36 hours. Spokeswoman Jean Medina said 14 planes had been inspected and cleared to fly by late morning. The carrier has about 460 aircraft. Delays were reported in Japan and Hawaii Wednesday morning and the airline warned passengers to be prepared for other delays and cancellations as it proceeded with the inspections. Medina said 31 of 84 scheduled 777 flights had been cancelled. United, a subsidiary of UAL Corp., said a review of maintenance records showed a test on one of five bottles in the fire suppression system hadn’t been performed. The airline alerted authorities. The planes, which have a so-called “intuitive” self-diagnostic system that would have detected any malfunction with the fire suppression system, mostly fly international routes and from the carrier’s major hubs. United carried out unscheduled maintenance on seven of its Boeing 747 jets last month but found no safety-related issues.

SOURCE: Associated Press, April 2

So since FAA is going for the 10.4 mill fine on SW, for reporting on themselves, and it says united reported a missed inspection, and the other airlines, will we all be fined?  I guess if they are consistent with the rules and not just singling out SW they should have enough money to upgrade the radar system and congress wont have to part with their zp tax they can keep it for their special little projects we don’t get a say on.

Here, here!!!!  I’m proud of all the airlines for coming forward and being honest.  Not many businesses would do this.

Yeah lets see what happens to the ‘fine’ money.........

Certainly not the businesses that scruitnize us, listening congress?

Aunt J....you rock!

Aunt J - 02 April 2008 11:19 AM

Certainly not the businesses that scruitnize us, listening congress?

republicans didn’t listen when they were in charge let’s see if the dems do

The FAA is sure under the microscope lately.  I put the blame on them because it seems odd that so many airlines would have to go under these ‘immediate’ inspections in such a short period of time, causing a lot of inconvenience for the the airlines and their passengers.  The FAA should have been monitoring the airlines all the time and not make the airlines look so bad.

American canceled over 500 flights on Tuesday due to inspection issues.  Wednesday isn’t looking much better.  Most flights into and out of Phoenix were canceled by the airline.

It makes you wonder if all businesses when they had a problem held “congressional hearings” within themselves, how were they focusing on keeping the company running? Do they just ignore other aspects of the company that aren’t as newsworthy? It seems to me that congress needs to say FAA screwed up, these are the changes that will be made so it doesn’t happen again and move on to the next piece of business instead of disecting it to death.  The airlines are policing their maintenance records because believe it or not they weren’t skipped to save money, because their first priority is really safety.  The airline employees fly on those planes as do the CEO’s of these companies so they’re not going on an unsafe plane.  Airlines are correcting themselves, FAA correct yourself, congress give up the zp tax and give it back to the FAA to upgrade their systems, so you don’t have to come up for the money it’s there (whoops what about the money for welfare?) Then move on to the next piece of business,maybe it will be just as newsworthy and you can get your name in the news again!

Aunt J - 09 April 2008 09:33 AM

The airline employees fly on those planes as do the CEO’s of these companies so they’re not going on an unsafe plane.  Airlines are correcting themselves, FAA correct yourself, congress give up the zp tax and give it back to the FAA to upgrade their systems, so you don’t have to come up for the money it’s there (whoops what about the money for welfare?) Then move on to the next piece of business,maybe it will be just as newsworthy and you can get your name in the news again!

Very well said Aunt J.  That’s the point, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.  The pilots and the mechanics fly on the planes and so do their friends and families.  They are not going to knowingly do anything wrong.  And even if one mechanic did there are other people involved that wouldn’t purposely let things happen.  If inspections are so immediately important, then obviously, the FAA inspectors didn’t do their jobs right in the past.  How come all of a sudden all these things are coming up?

Totally agree with you husker.