American cancelling another 900 flights today

[bigworld]

Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/24044418

AMR's 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

Read more: CNBC

[KamaAina]

1. If you like this week, you'll love the next couple of months

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080410/ap_on_bi_ge/airline_safety_analysis

WASHINGTON - This week's flight cancellations by American Airlines are likely to spread to other U.S. airlines in the weeks ahead as federal regulators step up a by-the-book review of carriers' compliance with maintenance and safety orders issued in recent years....

Midwest Airlines on Thursday became the latest airline to ground planes and cancel flights to re-inspect a wiring harness, the same issue that has forced American to cancel more than 2,400 flights and Alaska Airlines to cancel about 40 more in recent days....

Flight delays and cancellations could soon get worse, "particularly for the carriers that have older fleets," Harrell said. About 35 percent of the U.S. fleet is more than 25 years old, according to the International Air Transport Association....

"We are aware and sympathetic ... 100,000 people being stranded is extraordinary," (FAA spokeswoman Lynn -Ed.) Tierney said. "But the role is clear, it's a regulator's role and you have to enforce the regulations. We understand the disruption this causes, but (the airlines) had 18 months to complete the work."

This definitely hits home when one lives on a 600-sq-mi. island 2,400 miles from anywhere, which is dependent on air travel to bring in the visitors whose spending drives its entire economy, not to mention getting residents back and forth to meetings and such. With Aloha gone, imagine what would happen if Hawaiian got nailed with this... :scared:

edit: Obviously I'm not against air safety, but couldn't they have done this a little more gradually? Or does mass chaos at the airports somehow serve the BFEE's purposes? :tinfoilhat: