Major Turbulence for 150,000 As American Scraps 1,094 Flights
By Dan Reed
FORT WORTH — About 150,000 travelers scrambled Wednesday to find new flights when American Airlines canceled 1,094 flights as a result of one of the largest groundings of commercial planes ever.
American has canceled more than 1,500 flights since it parked all 300 of its Boeing MD-80 twin jets Tuesday afternoon for immediate maintenance inspections. Because more than 100 passengers can travel on each MD-80 flight, and more cancellations are expected today, the number of disrupted travelers is certain to grow.
About 60 of the grounded planes returned to service by late Wednesday, but American officials said they expect hundreds more flight cancellations today as company mechanics, inspectors and engineers triple-check each plane to make sure they will pass inspection. Federal Aviation Administration inspectors are then rechecking the planes before they are returned to service.
Friday cancellations also are possible, especially if forecasted thunderstorms and heavy rain today further disrupt American’s operations at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, its largest hub.
Dan Garton, American’s executive vice president for marketing, apologized repeatedly to travelers Wednesday at a news conference at the airline’s Fort Worth headquarters.
He also announced that in addition to providing food, lodging and ground transportation vouchers for affected travelers, American is giving those stranded overnight vouchers good for $500 in future travel on American. Travelers who did not get those vouchers initially can apply for them on the carrier’s website, aa.com.
"We are extremely sorry for this great inconvenience. We are humbled by the loyalty of our customers. And we are very disappointed we let them down," Garton said. "We know how difficult this has been, whether you’re on a leisure trip or a business trip. This kind of interruption is unacceptable."
It’s the second such disruption in just over two weeks.
Two weeks ago, American canceled hundreds of flights over two days to reinspect the MD-80 fleet when FAA inspectors determined the airline had not done some necessary repair work properly as required by previous FAA orders. On Monday, FAA inspectors performed a follow-up audit of 19 American MD-80s and found that the repair work done on 15 of them still didn’t meet the agency’s requirements.
The specific problem relates to a September 2006 repair order, called an airworthiness directive, in which the FAA gave MD-80 operators 18 months to place a sleeve around a bundle of high-power wires in the MD-80 wheel wells.
FAA’s closer look
American officials said they believed they complied with the FAA’s order, but during a special audit the FAA launched last month of all airlines’ compliance with recent airworthiness directives, FAA inspectors found problems with some of American’s MD-80s. Specifically, American officials say the FAA was dissatisfied with the way the sleeve was tied to the wiring bundle and how the bundle was attached.
The concern is that frayed wiring could allow arcing, which in turn could ignite a fire in nearby fuel tanks.
FAA spokeswoman Lynn Tierney said Wednesday that inspectors found violations including wiring that was not properly secured, not routed properly and not properly insulated. In other cases, some of the clamps used to hold the wiring appeared to be installed backward, Tierney said.
American Airlines officials said that chances of a fuel fumes ignition were so slim the FAA originally gave airlines 18 months to fix the problem, and that the placement of the sleeve over the wiring bundles had eliminated the chance of sparkings igniting a fire.
But FAA officials recently have begun giving airlines less latitude in how they address issues raised in airworthiness directives, Garton said. Work that might have passed muster in the past no longer does.
Bad day for fliers
For travelers, the bottom line Wednesday was heavy disruption.
John Miles, a construction company executive from Lawrence, Kan., said he knows whom to blame — American and the FAA.
"American should have caught and corrected the problem long before now," said Miles, trying to get home from the NCAA Final Four game in San Antonio. His flight from Austin to Kansas City was canceled; he rented a car and caught a flight at Dallas’ Love Field.
At Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on Wednesday at least 100 travelers stood in line to rebook their flights. One of them, Cindy Yover, 53, from Knox, Ind., had planned to fly to San Antonio for a week-long getaway with friends on Texas’ South Padre Island.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. She tried to convince herself that things could have been worse: What if the friends had booked a cruise? "At least I don’t have a ship to catch."
Roger Breusegem, an ophthalmologist from Belgium, was in Chicago for a conference and was booked on a 3:35 p.m. flight to Denver to visit his daughter. He peered at a monitor showing 49 canceled flights — including his. "I am canceled," he said with disgust. "I don’t know how to go to Denver. Now what do I do?" As he headed for the nearest line, he added, "I hope I will be there before midnight."
Contributing: Judy Keen, reporting from Chicago; Alan Levin, reporting from Washington, D.C.; and Maureen Milford of The News Journal in Wilmington, Del.