I fly out on American on Friday ??? They are killing me - anyone get cancelled today - anyone with inside info for Friday??

I didn't hear anything about them today. Are they pulling planes for maintenance like the other lines? Seems like the others were back up and running fairly quickly. Does your itinerary say MD80?

From ORD TO DFW we are on a MD80 (ahhhhhh) on their web site it said they cancelled 500 flights today and more Wed. so I have till friday - but still - I cannot hear it - it makes me crazy

OMG!! That's awful!!

But wait, I read something in the newspaper just today about having reached some kind of agreement with the maintenance staff? Sorry, I didn't pay really close attention. First it didn't concern me that much and I was having my own immediate issues. If only I'd realized. Seriously, I am sorry I don't have better info.

How about doing a google search and see what you come up with news-related?

uugghhhh!! Hopefully all will be well by Friday! keep your fingers and toes crossed. I actually just found that on MyYahoo news a few minutes ago.

OH geez, sorry again, I think what I was reading about was US Air. Doh!

We flew American Airlines last week. Our first flight for Minneapolis to Dallas-Ft.Worth was on an MD80. No cancellations, although, it left very late due to a long taxi to the runway.

I'm not a fan of American Airlines or Sears Travel at this time. See my trip report for details on that....

That could not have been the "reason" they gave, was it? lol

I am keeping everything crossed. I heard on the news today that AA has cancelled more flights but it should be better by Thursday so I am going to wait to hear what happens Thurs. and then maybe call my car service to get to O'hare early early early to fight the long lines. I need my AC fix

My wife and I were scheduled out of San Diego this am at 6:30.
Flight was MD80, it was cancelled, we were lucky I guess they put us on Alaskan to Seattle to Dallas, arrived Dallas 5pm, where we are staying tonight as obviously we missed our connecting flight, we are checked in tommorrow to fly to Belieze leaving Dallas at 1:05 pm and arriving Belieze at 2:55pm.
Luckily we are on a 737-800. The airports were a zoo, lot of upset people, we are celebrating our 40th Anniversary, what a wonderful start to that. Well hopefully we will be there tommorrow.

Does anyone have an update on this?

A friend called me today and said something about all MD80s were grounded today for a maintenance issue that was supposed to be a quick fix, but has turned into something a lot bigger than expected.

I am scheduled on an AA MD80 flight to Dallas in a couple of weeks, enroute to Europe for vacation. Hope this is resolved soon.

Good luck!

The only update I heard was that it was 1,000 flights, not 500.

I got our flights switched yesterday for Friday - we are now on a 757 Chicago to Miami at 6a.m. then on to Belize by Noon then AC! I was having a heart attach yesterday when I heard the Friday flights were being effected. Now I am still keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else goes wrong. I need my AC fix amd some sun and warmth!

Oh I so hope that you get to Belize, that really sucks I would be so worried.

We have never had good luck with Amercian and stopped flyng with them a few years ago, we always were delayed somewhere or stranded!! Just never worked out well for us!!!

Love Continental!!!

I hope this is fixed by next friday

They better have it all fixed up by May 3rd!!

"American Airlines cancels as many as 500 flights"
La Times yesterday:
http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-american-airlines-cancels-up-to-500-flights-9apr09

It's more like 1,000...

48 minutes ago from MSN... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24029455/

Washington Post... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/09/AR2008040901410.html

NY Times is a good source... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/business/11aircnd.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin


Sad indeed for the travel world.

Now the number is up to 2,500 canceled AA flights. Just keeping y'all in the know...

tq, it actually was, and believe it or not, it was the truth. It took forever for us to get to the runway from our gate...

Ouch. Looks like we got in and out of Belize in the nick of time!

Just hours till departure now. Limo pick up 3 a.m. - keeping fingers and toes crossed

Good luck! I hope all goes well!

Thanks - cannot sleep - too excited or nervous!

Arrived today 1 day and 2 1/2 hours late, dark when we arrived, hopefully they will change return flight from Thursday to friday at no ciost, am seriously upset with American

I went to AA website and it states the dates that you are flying and what can be changed in those time periods. See below. More info on their website www.aa.com

Customers who were scheduled on a flight that was cancelled may request a full refund or may apply the value of their ticket towards future travel on American Airlines. Additionally, customers scheduled to travel on any MD-80 flight from April 8 - 13, even if their flight has not been cancelled, may rebook without a change fee to any AA flight with availability in the same cabin as long as their travel begins by April 17, as shown below:

If you are traveling to, from or through... On the following dates... And your ticket was issued no later than... You may change your reservation to begin travel as late as...
Cities served by MD-80 aircraft April 8-13, 2008 April 8, 2008 April 17, 2008

One ticketed change is allowed, and no change fee will apply.

For assistance, contact our Reservations personnel at 1-800-433-7300 within the United States or Canada. If you are calling from outside the United States or Canada, please check our Worldwide Reservations Numbers page for Reservations contact information

perspective here is key....
while i completely understand the irritation of delayed and cancelled flights, irritation is a small price to pay for "not dead".

this is about safety...planes crash. i for one, and for those who know me can understand, think these cancelled flights are a WONDERFUL thing. It means, perhaps, someone did not die.

Kudos to the airlines, all of them, for finally putting safety before profits....if only for a little while.

FWIW: I'm thinking this whole mess is either the FAA jamming it to the industry to "be tough" for Congress; or the airlines, particularly AA, are overreacting to embarrass the FAA. The news reports have 2 constants: one, that no plane was unsafe w/o the precious 1.5" separation, and two, that in past years the FAA would have worked out a longer term/staggered repair schedule with the industry.

Canuck, I don't doubt that the reason your airplane was late was due to a long taxi however, ususally they give a reason as to why the long taxi, is all.

Lara, amen. Saftey first, ALWAYS!

On one of the news staions, during lunch today, they said all AA planes should be back and running by tomorrow evening.

Lara, while I applaud you attitude and agree in principal, the problem right now is that they had not been doing what they should have been doing all along. And had they been more concerned with maintenance and your safety in the first place, this would not be happening now.

I hope it is a lesson learned for the airline industry. It's costing them BIG. Sometimes trying to safe a penny, will end up costing a dollar.

While not in the airline industry, I often say to my clients, "you can pay me a small amount now to keep on top of these matters, or you can pay me a great deal of money later to straighten out a mess".

What's the problem with the MD80, other than that it's fundamentally a very old design (it was earlier called the DC9). Are they becoming non-airworthy?

Something about the wiring clips on the wiring harness in the wheel wells being a potential sparking/fire hazard. they all have to be checked and/or replaced. Nothing to do with the airworthiness of the basic design.

AA may have taken a big hit but they are one of the top 3 domestic carriers and have a LOT of money in the bank so this will sting but not like it would for some other carriers. ...Frontier next one declaring bankruptcy (but still honoring all bought tickets).

Usually this sort of thing is dealt with quietly and the public never get to know. Witness the problem with 747 fuel tanks, which probably most people here have never heard of (and I only know about because a friend is in the UK equivalent of the NTSB). How come this has been allowed to cause so much disruption?

Although the MD80 is very old (and very fuel-inefficient) it's always had a good name amongst pilots as a well designed and built aircraft.

I contacted American Airlines in Belieze City today and they changed our return flights to the 18th from the 17th at no cost to us and they were extremly pleasant about it. However am sure if I had to call the 800 number would never have got anyone on the phone, so I do however applaud their handling of my situation.

The wiring bundle was the subject of an advisory from the FAA. American had already done the fix. However, follow-up inspection by the FAA revealed that the ties used for the first fix, did not exactly match the FAA instructions and so they all have to be re-done. Probably a tempest in a teapot, created by bureaucracy, power flexing, and attempts to improve public perception of FAA.

Frontier gets a double whammy. Their credit card carrier has decided to do larger hold-backs. This is to protect the card company and presumably the passengers if Frontier goes belly-up and doesn't transport paid customers. However, while already cash-strapped, the hold back causes further cash flow problems. Frontier has said that regardless, they can deal with it.

Probably the cable ties were the wrong colour. Believe it or not, I know of a house in England that was rewired just as the legal colour coding of electrical cables was changing (more Brussels bureaucracy) and the builder didn't get the relevant inspector along quickly enough to certify the job. Has to be done before it can be connected to the electricity supply. Turned out there was a transitional period when either system of cable colours could be used, but by the time the inspector came that had expired. They were ordered to tear out all the new wiring and replace it with the new colours, which obviously involved breaking down wall plaster etc. A major job. The builder and owner argued long about it but to no avail - no rework, no connection to power.

Bureaucracy - where would we be without it?

Gad, that's got to be worth a lawsuit! I can't believe that if that set of circumstances were set before a judge that the homeowner and builder wouldn't prevail.

Any lawyers here care to wade in on this?

I'm a lawyer and I truly believe that I should be tarred and feathered. Sometime later . . . .

Kc, I'm sure there is a "rail" included with the feathers!

KC, I'll be right over with the feathers!

any further news on how AA is doing with flights today ?

American Scrubs 200 Flights; Full Schedule Tomorrow (Update2)

By Mary Schlangenstein

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- AMR Corp.'s American Airlines canceled another 200 flights today and predicted a return to a full schedule tonight as it worked to complete wiring inspections and repairs on its Boeing Co. jets.

Meeting that goal of normal operations would bring an end to five days of flight disruptions that erased almost 3,300 flights by the world's largest carrier and stranded about 360,000 passengers.

``Most of the cities only had a small handful of cancellations this morning,'' said American spokesman Tim Smith in a taped statement. The exceptions were at airports serving Dallas and Fort Worth, with 57 departure cancellations, and Chicago, with 29.

By midmorning, only three of the carrier's 300 MD-80s were awaiting final inspections by the Federal Aviation Administration; the remaining planes were back in service, Smith said.

Chief Executive Officer Gerard Arpey said winning travelers' confidence again ``will not be easy'' after the cancellations linked to the MD-80s, which account for 46 percent of American's fleet.

``There is no sugarcoating the fact that we are going to have to earn back the trust of the customers we disappointed in recent days,'' Arpey said in a message to employees. He added: ``I know we can do it.''

Earning Trust

AMR fell 39 cents, or 4 percent, to $9.48 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange trading. The shares have plunged 71 percent in the past year and 32 percent since the end of December.

American parked the planes after Federal Aviation Administration spot checks found that wiring bundles in the jets' wheel wells didn't comply with an FAA order, even after inspections of the MD-80 fleet for the same issue in March.

The original FAA order specifying how the wiring bundles had to be covered and secured noted the danger of shorting or arcing, possibly resulting in a fire. A blaze might spark an explosion in fuel tanks in the wings, the FAA said.

American's MD-80s have two engines, can seat 140 passengers and are used mostly on domestic routes. Each canceled flight would have had about 110 people on board, American spokesman Tim Wagner estimated this week.

American hired an outside consultant to review its compliance with FAA directives and is conducting an internal investigation. No changes in maintenance personnel are planned ``at this point,'' said Roger Frizzell, American's vice president of corporate communications.

Vouchers, Refunds

Customers booked on canceled flights may request a refund, and those stranded overnight can seek a $500 voucher toward future flights, American said. Those with flight reservations through tomorrow can rebook without charge. The airline is paying for hotel stays for passengers stuck overnight.

``This would be a big item normally, but in the age when oil is jumping $10 a barrel in one week and you have an uncertain economy, this is really on the back burner as far as serious cost items go,'' Ray Neidl, a New York-based analyst at Calyon Securities Inc., said in an interview.

``Whatever it might cost them during this ordeal could be completely reversed very easily if oil went down $10 a barrel,'' he added.

President George W. Bush is aware that travelers are under a ``great strain'' from this week's cancellations, and ``those are certainly concerns that we share,'' White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters yesterday in Crawford, Texas. ``But we also share safety concerns.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.s@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 12, 2008 14:05 EDT

The MD80 is an ancient aeroplane. I had no idea so many were still in service.

18 years old isn't ancient in the airline business.

28 years - the MD80 first flew in 1980. But it's closely derived from the DC9, which entered service in the 60s.

Peter is quite right... McDonnell Douglas' MD-80 was first flown by Swiss Air in October of 1980.

The MD-80 is the second generation of the DC-9 aircraft. Essentially, it's a longer version of the original DC-9 with more lift, more fuel capacity, and updated turbo fans.

You talk about the aircraft as if it were ancient and should be considered a relic. People, do any of you remember an airframe called the C-47 or DC-3? Ever notice how many of this old reliable are still flying?

Nothing wrong with old aircraft, but they use far more fuel and cost much more in maintenance. They're also much noisier than modern designs. All reasons why most airlines try to fly recent models.

Under EU regulations, though, it seems that the DC3 will have to meet the same standards as a modern airliner if it is ever to take to the air with paying customers. I know several owners who feel they'll have to sell, and skydiving centres that think they might have to dispose of these much loved aircraft (I've jumped from them many times). More evidence of the bureaucratic nightmare that is the EU.

Incidentally, the DC3 airframe may be very durable, but the original radial engines are now difficult to maintain airworthy.

Excuse me. Please allow me to restate. The average age of *American's* fleet is 18 years.

1/2 of them are 36?

The fact that the MD80 was introduced in 1980 doesn't mean that the fleet dates from then. They were made, I believe, up until the early 90's, with the final example of any variant being built in 2000, though by then they were really showing their age and weren't much in demand.

Interesting article. I'm sure all airlines, and in fact all operators of hi-tech machinery, face the same quandary. Technology is advancing so quickly. Of course, the fact that fuel has trebled in cost in five years is a major incentive.

When the article say that American's fleet of MD80s averages 18 years old, I think they must be including later derivatives as well, such as the MD90. Otherwise I don't see the 18 year average as likely. The MD80 itself was last made almost 18 years ago.