American Airlines today said it expects to complete inspections and return all 300 aircraft in its MD-80 fleet to service on Saturday. The inspections prompted the carrier to the cancel 922 flights today, 1,094 flights yesterday and 460 on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, American is enlisting a third-party firm to review the carrier's processes for complying with airworthiness directives. American Airlines chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey, during a call with media today, said the financial hit of the service disruptions "will be in the tens of millions of dollars. Fortunately we have worked hard for a lot of years here to build our liquidity base and pay down a lot of debt."
Arpey noted 123 of the MD-80 aircraft had returned to service, while the others are "being worked round the clock," adding, "It will take us several more days to get us up to speed and I can't anticipate any other hiccups." The carrier said it continues to accommodate passengers and offer refunds for cancelled flights.
American's inspections have caused the most sustained series of flight disruptions since the Federal Aviation Administration began audits of domestic airline airworthiness records last month. In the midst of those FAA audits, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines also cancelled flights to inspect aircraft. Alaska Airlines also cancelled flights this week amid MD-80 inspections and said it had completed inspections on eight of its 10 MD-80s, which caused 11 cancellations today.
A contrite Arpey today shielded American's mechanics and the FAA from blame. When American initially took planes out of service for inspections late last month
(BTNonline, March 26), he said the carrier "didn't do it precisely in accordance with the airworthiness directive and I take responsibly for that." That failure led to another round of inspections this week as mechanics looked for chafing on the wire bundle in the wheel wells of its MD-80s, he said, noting AA is the world's largest operator of MD-80s and the carrier did not detect any wire chafing in the course of its inspections, though American had to make adjustments on "most aircraft."
Arpey said the FAA has "ordered record inspections across our fleet and the rest of the airlines industry. I think it would be fair to characterize as the FAA stepping up surveillance and doing their job."
Lawmakers, government watchdogs and travel associations, however, in recent weeks have led an outcry on airline safety and travel disruptions, calling into question the relationship between FAA and domestic carriers while urging further oversight.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) today during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing echoed growing concerns about the relationship between FAA and air carriers, noting the FAA is "too close to the industry it regulates."
An Association of Corporate Travel Executives survey of 112 travel buyers released today indicated that 62 percent are "considering adding a stipulation to their airline agreements certifying that a carrier is in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness directives." However, ACTE found only 3 percent of the respondents said their travelers had shared "significant concerns about safety." ACTE said 74 percent said recent maintenance-induced cancellations represent "more of an inconvenience than a major cost issue."
"The FAA is now sending a strong message to the airlines, indicating that its directives cannot be subject to negotiation or interpretation," ACTE executive director Susan Gurley said in a statement today. "It is apparent that directives will now have to be followed to the letter. It will be interesting to see if the FAA can sustain this effort, and if its previous position regarding airlines as 'customers' will make the transition to one of oversight."
The National Business Travel Association in a statement today said the recent spate of cancellations has "caused significant frustration for tens of thousands of travelers, has cost American businesses untold dollars in lost productivity and lost business, and has further rattled confidence in the U.S. aviation system." NBTA requested a thorough review of "the cause of the recent breakdowns in the inspection audit process that led to the cancellations of so many flights" and airline plans to accommodate and compensate stranded passengers.
The Business Travel Coalition fielded a survey of 223 corporate travel professionals prior to American's meltdown and released results earlier this week. The survey found that 40 percent of respondents "are less willing to fly due to current aircraft maintenance issues," while 13 percent recently have "skipped recent flights due to maintenance concerns_" and an additional 25 percent "indicate they are very likely or fairly likely to skip future flights."
BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell in a statement said, "Airlines would be well-counseled not to sidestep these maintenance concerns as they have passenger service issues in recent years. The consequences for the airline industry could be highly problematic."