American Cancels 570 Flights Friday

FORT WORTH, Texas — The cancellation of thousands of flights this week will cost American Airlines tens of millions of dollars, the company's chief executive said Thursday, but he said the nation's largest carrier can withstand the losses.

American said it canceled another 570 flights Friday and disruptions will continue through Saturday as it continues to check electrical wiring in all 300 of its MD-80 aircraft.

CEO Gerard Arpey said he took full responsibility for the airline's failure to comply with a federal safety rule designed to prevent electrical fires in the planes.

American scratched more than 900 flights Thursday, the third straight day of major cancellations, while its mechanics worked overtime to check the aircraft and comply with the rule. The company said all its MD-80s would be back in service by Saturday night.

Arpey said neither the airline's mechanics nor the Federal Aviation Administration were to blame for the more than 3,000 canceled flights so far this week.

The airline canceled more than 400 flights for the same reason two weeks ago. But the repairs done then didn't meet FAA standards, resulting in this week's debacle.

On Wednesday, Arpey's top lieutenant suggested that American had fallen victim to a suddenly more aggressive FAA. The agency has been under fire since disclosures last month of its lax enforcement of safety rules at Southwest Airlines Co.

In measured tones, Arpey said Thursday that the FAA "obviously is under their own set of scrutiny and pressure right now," but was only doing its job of "holding airlines to exacting standards."

Arpey said it was too early for the airline to estimate the cost of the cancellations. AMR is running a tab for meals, hotel rooms and $500 travel vouchers for stranded passenger and it lost revenue when it booked people on other airlines. On the other hand, it has saved what it would have spent for fuel on those 2,500 flights.

"I think it will be in the tens of millions of dollars," Arpey said of the final cost. But he said the airline had built up enough cash and paid down debt to deal with the loss. He said the carrier has business-interruption insurance, but he doubted that it would cover the cancellation-related losses.

American got some good news on Wall Street. Shares of parent AMR Corp., which fell 11 percent the day before, rose 70 cents, or 7.6 percent, to $9.87 Thursday.

Comments

[JohnKemp]

One more time: air travel is the safest form of transportation, the MD-80 is a fine airplane with an excellent history, and American AIrlines is a well-run company.

This fiction is caused by the FAA.

Same song, same music.

No problem - A government agency creates one - Its stooges in the MSM hystericalize "the problem" at the expense of the private company or citizen - Government agency gets a bigger budget & hires more parasites.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

[tdh]

yes, and there will be a huge reorganizaiton of the airline industry, with one or two corporations gaining control.

[SanityNow]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong,
The airlines loss must be resulting in higher gas sales, at record high prices.
People are choosing to drive instead of fly, and staying home means driving your car.
This, from an administration whose only goal has ever been, more oil, higher profits.
They have already attacked the rail industry. the airlines are next.

[JohnKemp]

I hate to be rude, but would it be possible for the mighty HuffPo to separate itself from the other MSM whores & actually report the truth?

American Airlines has not cancelled one single damn flight; American Airlines under the direction of a failing, swailing FAA has been forced to cancel many flights.

This entire farce has been CAUSED by the givernment, not by American Airlines.

[WhirledTraveler]

Yes, AA did cancel the flights, albeit as a result of an FAA directive. An aircraft swap could have prevented this, however, that's not exactly practical for hundreds of flights. Was this caused by the gov't (FAA) or AA? It depends on this, was AA following the directives the FAA had in place at the time of the grouding of these aircraft or not, and if so, were those directives modified at the last minute (regardless of the reason) not giving AA lead time?

Seems to me that in the perfect world no one would be flying MD80s in the first place. If only for the fact that they are loud, shake like hell, and in general not a comfortable, much less eco / fuel -friendly aircraft.

[loki]

Nothing will happen with this. It will be in the news of a few weeks. The Gov might fine them , but they will never have to pay, they rarely do pay in federal fines. Those are all for show. And in a month everything will be as it was. Planes will again be serviced by 3rd world untrained and unmonitored mechanics, and the airlines will save millions of dollars.

[loki]

This is great. Frontier is filing for bankruptcy , claiming the same excuse the Bear Sterns and even Eron claimed. It was all a bad rumor that caused false panic. Anyone else remember just a few years ago how we, the tax payer bailed out the airline industry? Twice I think it was, and for several hundred of millions of dollars. Did it help them? It only helped the elitist CEO's and share holders to profit from the taxpayer and postponed the inevitable. Now they are all filing bankruptcy, and being corporations and the super rich, they can get out of paying off creditors, like the millions loaned of tax payer money. Not like the rest of us who can no longer get out of paying off debt when a health or other crisis hits us. The bankruptcy reform was only meant to keep us indebt, and let the rich play and not pay. And its doing just what it was written to do. So look at what happened with the airline bail outs, and think about how BS billion dollar bail out and others like it are going to turn out in the future. They will go on, and not have to pay one red cent back.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

anybody need a ride this weekend, I'm free?

[bailey2006]

Please allow me to fill the general public in on a little information the MSM is failing to report.

This first started with Southwest, where the FAA did their inspections. There were quite a few of the Southwest flights canceled. Then we heard about one or two Delta flights. Now the MSM is concentrating on reporting on the American Airlines flights canceled in such large numbers.

What they are not telling the general public is 1) this is is an FAA issue - they got caught being negligent in their inspection duties and things have just now come out, thus they are trying to cover their butts, and 2) the MSM is only reporting about the American Airlines cancelations, since they are the largest airlines in the US. They are NOT covering all the other airlines that are having to cancel flights due to inspections, as the FAA is doing them slowly.

I do not know what FAA's intentions are that they are going gang busters with American. Why couldn't they schedule a few at a time?

If the MSM would do their job right and report on all aspects of the FAA situation, the public would not be duped into thinking that this is an American Airlines problem. I have heard many travelers say they would never fly American again. Please think again. It is the FAA that is creating this chaos.

[JohnKemp]

Thank you for your post.

Once again, the MSM is duping the American public - It's beyond me how gullible most people remain.

These cancellations & resultant kaos are caused by the government, not by the airlines.

If the FAA was closed today, tomorrow air travel would improve, and ticket prices would decrease.

[RogerHWerner]

Take away the FAA and quite possible planes would begin to fall out of the sky unless you expect to rely on the airlines for safety. The problem isn't with this specific issue but with the fact that the FAA has been instructed like almost every other regulatory federal agency to ignore their statutory obligations. As the original post noted, had the FAA been doing their job there wouldn't be this raft of cancellations but as also noted, the FAA didn't have to ground these planes since the wiring issues were not critical and failure would not result in catastrophic failure; at least, this is my understanding of situation. As for fairs decreasing if the FAA were out of the picture I have seen no evidence this would in fact occur. With 30 years of promises that deregulation would benefit the consumer I can't think of many instances when this actually occurred. What I have seen over the past 30 years is a much lower level of service and lip service to lower prices. Anyone care to argue that the cost of living today compared to wages is comparable to what it was in 1980?

One would hope that heads will roll at FAA but like anything in the Bush administration, I suspect the heads of this agency will be retired with honors and earn a lucrative private sector job along with a fact government pension. What they should get is the boot and an unemployment insurance disqualification letter.

[AurigaRa]

Correction

Caused by FAA Government Employees who no doubt were told by someone high up in the administration to punish airlines because whistleblowers were making noise. I'll show you to complain about FAA inspections.

Sure the airlines should have been more careful but this current stuff is OVERKILL which somehow is not getting covered in the MSM.

Have you heard any reports in the traditional media that the airlines are be deliberately deluged with demand for inspections. There is no reason they ALL have to be done right now. This is being done to punish the airlines.

Hopefully American can survive and folks won't hold this against them
This is the REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION at work - not the American Government.

[ramal]

A 45 minute wait yesterday in the "cattle pens" at Hartsfied Airport in Atlanta, only to have my luggage riffled tthrough by a TSA goon and have my 1.7 oz. bottle of unsealed mouth wash confiscated. On to the plane whose air conditioning was broken, every seat filled by hot, angry, worn out passengers. You can have it! I am staying home.

[billythekid888]

Dear Rep / Senator,

The Bush Administration has committed so many high crimes and misdemeanors that it is beyond the scope of this letter to cite these violations of law.
The Bush Administration has damaged America"s reputation in the world beyond repair. America is no longer considered "good." America will now be remembered as "hypocrites of torture," and "a force of evil."
Now our economy is in severe recession because of failed political and economic policies of this Administration.
As a member of Congress you swore an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.
It is your duty to impeach President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Rice, Attorney General Gonzales and members of this Administration who have participated in criminal activity immediately.
Failure to impeach means you are in violation of your Constitutional oath.
Which is it?
As a tax paying citizen and registered voter, I demand an explanation. I want to see articles of impeachment introduced now!
If you are in violation of your Constitutional oath; then the Constitution of the United States of America is dead!
If you refuse to act out of fear, cowardice or for other reasons, I will see you voted out office and replaced with a 3rd party candidate.
We elected you to represent us, the common citizen. Make us proud this one time. Hear our cry of patriotism and introduce impeachment articles against this Administration.
Sincere Regards,

[WhirledTraveler]

Thanks, you saved me the time / effort to write this myself. I'll make like NObama and plagiarize.

[FogBelter]

Let's quit pretending that Businessmen have the answer for America's struggling Airline Industry. This isn't only problem for the Airlines, only the most recent one. Air travel in America is a service that needs to be managed in a consistent, responsible fashion to meet the needs of the flying public. The focus on the bottom line and meeting the needs of the stockholders is undermining the entire industry.

Let's be straight here, 9/11 murdered the notion of the airlines as a free market enterprise ... the industry has never recovered from that. It's best if the US Government comes up with a plan to take it over, and quit pretending there will ever be light at the end of the tunnel as Air Service is currently being handled.

[JohnKemp]

Precisely what is happening here; the FAA has caused all of this nonsense.

Millions of dollars in losses to shareholders, a fine airline's reputation slandered, and tens of thousands of travelers left stranded for no reason whatsoever.

Government already controls the Post Office, Sociality, public education, etc. Maybe they should work on them before "branching out."

But if they can't resist, let them nationalize the movie industry first & control the salaries of Barbara Streisand & Julia Roberts.

Wonder what the ratio of Julia Roberts pay is to that of the movie's janitor?

[FogBelter]

Sophistry

[RogerHWerner]

Well...where to begin. I'll keep it simple. Rarely does meeting the needs of stockholders correspond with meetings the needs of society. In fact, I'd argue that the needs of society are rarely met when the need for quarterly profits take precedence. This is why we are supposed to have a government . We don;t so much as have a government today as we have a publicly funded adjunct to business whose sole function seems to be to maximize profits at the public expense.

[AdultFilmLegend]

"But he said the airline had built up enough cash and paid down debt to deal with the loss."

...but nearly enough customer loyalty to ensure they haven't given up on us.

[alncarter]

Senator Larry Craig is rushing to an airport to conduct an "investigation."

[Theda]

Funny!

[MetalCanuck]

These companies play games with your safety, I never few before and I now for sure will NEVER fly.

[NightRider]

You are missing out on a great experience. Flying is still the safest mode of transportation. There are many redundancy and back up systems that makes it almost fool proof. Try it some day. Don't be discouraged.

[grisgris]

Agreed. Flying is the safest way to go. That said, MetalCanuck doesn't sound like someone I'd like to be seated next to on a long flight through turbulence.

[desmirl]

Anytime I think of flying with its delays, lost baggage, long lines, cramped seating, overwrought security... The open road beckons. I toss the suitcases in the back of the car, fill the tank, check the oil, and head out. And with the delays that are normal these days, I get there feeling a lot less hassled and with the memories of roads well-driven.

[loki]

My Bad, For some reason In my last post I typed FCC when its FAA. DUH....