Flight Cancellations Stretch Into Weekend

April 11, 2008— -- With nearly 3,000 flights canceled this week, American Airlines is still scrambling to accommodate passengers. The airline canceled another 595 flights Friday, in addition to the thousands it had canceled since Tuesday.

American said Friday morning that more than 225 of the carrier's 300 MD-80 jets are back in service. The airline is rotating the planes back into service once inspectors re-examine wiring, and expects to get the rest of them back in the air by tomorrow night.

Delta, Midwest and Alaska airlines also canceled flights this week for inspections, though in smaller numbers than American.

But as the airlines continue to reaccommodate customers, many travelers stranded in the nation's airports are raising the same question:

"Why would they come out with a plan to ground all the planes at one time?" asked Sanjay Amin, a traveler trying to get from Chicago to Dallas.

Congress is asking the Federal Aviation Administration the same question.

At a Thursday aviation hearing on Capitol Hill, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D- W.Va., wondered whether the FAA could have avoided mass cancellations had it conducted more frequent and regular compliance checks. He wondered whether the American planes would have been grounded if the news of the uninspected Southwest planes had not become public.

"If this had been identified at another point in time, I believe the outcome would have been the same," said Nicholas Sabatini, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety. Sabatini praised the work the FAA has done so far in "extending the safest period in aviation history." The FAA recently found airlines were 99 percent compliant with safety directives after nearly 2,400 audits at 117 air carriers.

Rockefeller called this week's cancellations "catastrophic economically" and "an embarrassment to the nation."

"This has obviously caused a volcanic disruption which is, in and of itself, unthinkable," he said.

Both House and Senate lawmakers accuse the FAA of having too close a relationship with the industry it regulates — at the expense of airline safety. Echoing the sentiments expressed at last week's House hearing, lawmakers and aviation experts said Thursday that this week's cancellations aren't entirely American's fault, but also the FAA's fault for running a broken system.