For anyone who has plans to fly on American Airlines, AMR Corp (NYSE: AMR) or Delta (NYSE: DAL) today, you may want to call ahead and verify that your flights are still taking off as planned, as both airlines are canceling hundreds of scheduled flights today.Both carriers are grounding a large number of flights as they continue to hold inspections on wiring bundles on some of their planes. For American, the company is planning to ground 132 of its flights today, while Delta is canceling 275 flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration is in the middle of a massive inspection project, in which it stated that it will be inspecting 10 safety orders (also known as airworthiness directives) at every single major airline by March 28. This comes after a scandal broke out over missed inspections at Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV) earlier this year.
The Southwest scandal resulted in a $10.2 million dollar fine after the company continued to fly planes for a 10-day period after they missed their inspections. Southwest is appealing this decision, stating that the manufacturer of the planes, in this case Boeing (NYSE: BA) stated that continuing to fly the planes would not pose any threat to passengers. As it turned out, six of the planes in question had to be repaired for small cracks and have since been put back into service.
Small cracks? No danger? I don't know about you ... but I definitely hope I never board any plane that has any "small cracks" in it. Is there really even such a thing as a small crack when it comes to airplanes flying at 35,000 feet? Not to me there isn't.
So, while these current cancellations are definitely going to cause some people a bit of inconvenience, at least travelers can sleep a little easier on their flights knowing that they have all passed their required inspections.
Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last four years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.
Entrepreneur's Journal: Key steps for telesales success
The week in preview: Focus returns to earnings: Alcoa, Chevron, Family Dollar
Comfort Zone Investing: Survival of the fittest -- letting some banks fail
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-09-2008 @ 3:00PM
Shaman said...
Unbeknown to the general public airplanes are allowed to fly with certain inoperative or discrepant systems. If they had to be 100% operable i'd argue no airline would be in business. You'll hear it a lot from the airline the issue is about safety vs compliance, and yes there may be times were a crack may still be deemed safe.