AA cancels flights for MD-80 reinspection
Anyone flying American Airlines should check on their flights. Yesterday the airlines announced almost 500 flight cancellations and more are probably on the way as the week goes on.
According to the Dallas Morning News
American grounded the MD-80s on March 26 and 27 and canceled more than 450 flights over those two days. It returned the planes to service March 28 after asserting they had satisfied the regulation.
After returning to Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on Monday, an FAA inspector randomly selected 10 MD-80s to make sure the jets had been properly inspected and modified, according to the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American’s pilots. Nine did not pass the audit, the union said.
On a visit to American’s heavy maintenance facility in Tulsa, inspectors found that seven of 10 jets weren’t in compliance, officials said.
Looks like this is a repeat of the initial American Airlines inspections. Let’s hope the AA mechanics have better luck with the inspections this time.
American Airlines issued a statement claiming that these cancellations and the reinspections have nothing to do with airworthiness but are simply techinical compliance issues.
American Airlines is canceling several hundred flights today to conduct additional inspections of its MD-80 fleet to ensure precise and complete compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration’s airworthiness directive related to the bundling of wires in the aircraft’s wheel wells. These inspections – based on FAA audits – are related to detailed, technical compliance issues and not safety-of-flight issues.
Unfortunately these “precise and complete” inspections should have been done as part of the normal maintenance schedule. Since the airline failed to follow “precise and complete compliance” passengers are seeing their plans destroyed.
I have not seen any releases detailing “precise and complete” paths to refunds for affected passengers.
You may also be interested in these articles
Comments
Please share your thoughts...