AA Grounds 13 Percent Of Flights, Following FAA Audit
CHICAGO (WBBM) -- American Airlines canceled about 13 percent of its flights nationwide Wednesday for a voluntary inspection of specific aircrafts identified in a FAA audit - the highest concentrations of the nixed flights were at O'Hare and Dallas-Fort Worth.
American Airlines says its canceled about 300 flights today -- including 70 departures and 68 arrivals from O'Hare International airport.
The airline is inspecting all its MD-80 planes. The airline says its a voluntary inspection of the wiring on the planes following the FAA's auditing of maintenance records of all airlines.
American initially put the number of cancellations at 200, but spokesman Tim Wagner said that was a conservative estimate because the airline prefers to hold off on cancellations as long as possible. The entire fleet of MD-80s is being inspected, Wagner said.
The inspections may not be totally completed before tomorrow and therefore could cause more cancellations. The highest concentrations of the nixed flights were in the airline's hubs at Dallas-Fort Worth and O'Hare.
Wagner did not have an estimate of how many planes had completed the inspection and returned to service, and he couldn't say whether cancellations would continue into Thursday.
"We are in the process of completing the inspections on the remaining airplanes and will return them to service on a rolling basis throughout the day," Wagner said.
During the audit of American Airlines, a joint team of AA and FAA inspectors raised questions regarding an already accomplished directive concerning how a certain bundle of wires is secured to the MD-80 aircraft.
Shares of American's parent AMR Corp. fell $1.02, or 10.59 percent, to close at $8.61 Wednesday, approaching the lower end of their 52-week range of $8.38 to $34.
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