Southwest Emergency Landing: Airline Cancels Flights After 'Fuselage Rupture' Scare

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Passengers are awaiting news on cancellations at Los Angeles International Airport after more than a dozen had already been canceled as of noon and the total number of cancellations in airports across the country exceeds 300.

Southwest says it is doing the best it can to reassign ticket holders and told Reuters Saturday that it may be canceling another 300 flights by the end of the weekend.

"Southwest expects to cancel approximately 300 flights [Saturday] to accommodate the inspections," the airline said in a statement. "Customers may experience sporadic delays of up to two hours on some flights today. Customers should check the status of their particular flight or rebook their trip on southwest.com before heading to the airport."

By midday Saturday, Southwest had canceled 13 of about 95 flights scheduled at LAX, including a 2:15 p.m. flight to San Francisco; a 4:40 p.m. departure to Phoenix and then Omaha; and a 5:20 p.m. flight to San Jose.

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Comments

[mlaiuppa]

06:18 PM on 04/03/2011

I heard these planes were put in service in 1996. That makes them 15 years old. Very old in airline years. Plus I'll bet being Southwest they have a lot more airmiles on them too. That it even more important that calendar years.

They're simply worn out.

We need an efficient rail passenger system now.