Check your airlines!

[LOWTYD]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/04/09/american.airlines.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

 

This is a CNN story from this morning. Americna Airlines has grounded flights and the webpage also mentions Delta, Southwest and United are grounding planes for safety checks. We don't want you to be stranded and miss your cruise!:eek:

[Globaliser]

Americna Airlines has grounded flights and the webpage also mentions Delta, Southwest and United are grounding planes for safety checks.

As the article says, Southwest, Delta and United's groundings have all been and gone now.

 

Today's news is only because of the second wave of groundings for American Airlines.

[LOWTYD]

As the article says, Southwest, Delta and United's groundings have all been and gone now.

 

Today's news is only because of the second wave of groundings for American Airlines.

 

Oh, that is good. I just saw their names mentioned on the bullets at top of the page. I guess it is just the American Passangers who should be concerned.

Thanks

[Ask4Jay]

We are scheduled to leave Friday morning from Philly to Miami on, yes, American for our Saturday crossing to Rome. The 'good' news is that we are not going on an MD-80, the ones they have to check the wiring on. We are on a B-757 and SHOULD be OK. In any case, I quote Alfred E Newman: "What, me worry?" We either make it or we won't. If AA could tell us today, we could go on a looong train ride and still catch our ship ... Oh well.

[LOWTYD]

Watching news right now. More AMERICAN MD-80's being grounded tomorrow. Thousands stranded.

Alaska Airline grounded 19 planes today.

 

Glad I can drive to the pier!

[SakeDad]

We are on USAir from Vegas to Long Beach...at least if something happens and they can't rebook us we can drive there and still make the ship! Sure hope I don't have to, though!:rolleyes:

[Ms belp]

We are scheduled to leave Friday morning from Philly to Miami on, yes, American for our Saturday crossing to Rome. The 'good' news is that we are not going on an MD-80, the ones they have to check the wiring on. We are on a B-757 and SHOULD be OK. In any case, I quote Alfred E Newman: "What, me worry?" We either make it or we won't. If AA could tell us today, we could go on a looong train ride and still catch our ship ... Oh well.

 

I'd go on the train ride. After hearing about the backlog of 100,000+ AA passengers, and the madhouse at DFW & O'Hare with people sleeping in the airports with 100's of people standing in lines to try and rebook (one woman has been stranded in Florida for 2 days), and the weather...

 

Even though your flight isn't on an MD-80, you could still end up stuck. "We either make it or we won't" makes it sound like you aren't very excited about your cruise.

[Ask4Jay]

OMG, Ms belp, we have been waiting for this crossing since last May! It's on Azamara Quest, our favorite type ship, in our favorite aft cabin and balcony. However, as a former airline employee (and standby flyer), we have learned to adopt a loose attitude. We have been bumped off a flight in many a city. This time we have done all we can do: confirmed seats, are leaving a day early, now it's wait and see. On top of it all, we are planning to go to DW's 55th reunion at 'Germany High'. It has been scheduled to coincide with our arrival in Europe, following a family reunion in Switzerland with my siblings and families. So you can see, a lot is riding on this cruise. But I can't drive myself crazy. Tomorrow I'll work with AIG Insurance to explore our options, including driving to Miami, parking the car (for over 3 weeks, ouch) and flying back to Miami instead of Philly.

[garycarla]

If you are not traveling for a few days, you should be okay. They will get caught up. People with confirmed reservations showing up on time will get their seats, if the plane is flying.

 

The airline can not give you more than a days notice (if that) on cancelled flights because they are trying to get the planes back in the air as fast as they can.

 

You should KNOW what you alternate options are in advance. Look them up now. Think about driving to a nearby city. Or flying to a different city and renting a car.

 

We are not flying until Sunday on American, but already have a non-refundable alternate flight booked for saturday night, just in case. I really doubt we will have a problem, but are ready just in case.

[DizzyDallasDi]

We are scheduled to leave Friday morning from Philly to Miami on, yes, American for our Saturday crossing to Rome. The 'good' news is that we are not going on an MD-80, the ones they have to check the wiring on. We are on a B-757 and SHOULD be OK. In any case, I quote Alfred E Newman: "What, me worry?" We either make it or we won't. If AA could tell us today, we could go on a looong train ride and still catch our ship ... Oh well.

 

I'm flying AA from DFW to Miami on Friday (on a 757 -- WHEW huh?) to catch the Sun on Sat. Since AA is headquartered here, it's been all over the news about the MD-80s and the 1000+ canceled flights. I'm crossing my fingers, toes and eyes hoping they don't start pulling the 757s offline tomorrow or Friday morning for similar maintenance problems. Nothing has been reported here (yet :rolleyes: ) about problems with any other aircraft so we're probably safe. To add insult to injury, DFW is having some major weather and that sure won't help with any flights into or out of here today and tomorrow. BUT, the weather is supposed to be great on Friday.:D Good luck and I hope you have a great trip!

 

Diane

[Ms belp]

The local news just announced that AA has cancelled at least 900 flights for tomorrow.

[Globaliser]

The whole thing has got completely out of hand. The work needs to be done, but not like this - it isn't short-term safety critical. The FAA has swung from being too lax to being too strict, purely for political reasons and not to do with safety of flight. It is just ridiculous.

[kmacht]

Dizzy - No need to worry about anything but the MD-80's. They have a specific airworthyness directive against them for only that model of airplane. The AD doesn't apply to any of the 7X7 planes.

 

I too will be on the Sun saturday. Not sure if my flight out of New York is an MD-80 or not but if AA does this inspection the same way that the other airlines did it should be completed by the end of today. I don't think that it took longer than two days for most of the other airlines to do the inspection and get their flights caught up. Even if it does get canceled I can always try to get a flight on another airline or even go out of boston or hartford if needed. One way or another I will be there when the ship sails.

 

Keith

 

 

hoping they don't start pulling the 757s offline tomorrow or Friday morning for similar maintenance problems. Nothing has been reported here (yet :rolleyes: ) about problems with any other aircraft so we're probably safe. Diane

[heatherandfred]

Thank God I have options! I love being able to drive to either New Jersey or down the West Side Highway to the pier.

[AFT_LOVER]

with airlines cancelling flights & no hotel or another airline that they put you on. Sleeping in an airport is far from safe or comfortable.

 

AA cancels 500 flights Tuesdays, 800 Wednesday & now 900 today. How many cruisers didn't make it? Luckily here at CLE no AA, so all were safe. So not only bankruptcy is at fault. Insurance would have you covered for a replacement flight for higher price than you paid. If none available, then hotel for the night & flight to next port. If NCL bought it, then you would contact them, which you should so they hold the cruise departure for plenty of folks with you..

[cruzeluver]

My parents scheduled Amercian flight for Saturday has been cancelled (no notification, ugh!). Good news they were able to get re-booked on another flight that only gets them to LAX an hour later. Fingers are crossed that all of us make it for our cruise on the Star.

[SakeDad]

My parents scheduled Amercian flight for Saturday has been cancelled (no notification, ugh!). Good news they were able to get re-booked on another flight that only gets them to LAX an hour later. Fingers are crossed that all of us make it for our cruise on the Star.

Good reminder for everyone to double check your air reservations right now. It takes time to notify people on 900 flights (2400 this week alone:eek:) that you are canceled. And remember, many of those on American can be put on other airlines so even if you aren't on AA you can be impacted.

A good thing to do no matter what airline you are on is to print out a schedule of ALL flights regardless of airline that will get you to the port, even alternate airports, so that if you get to the airport and have changes you are equipped to go to the counter knowing your options and you can ask for those specific flights. Even if you have to change airports (LAX to Long Beach, Miami to Ft Lauderdale, JFK to Newark, etc...) you'll know your options.

Good luck everyone!:D

[hawaiilvr]

The whole thing has got completely out of hand. The work needs to be done, but not like this - it isn't short-term safety critical. The FAA has swung from being too lax to being too strict, purely for political reasons and not to do with safety of flight. It is just ridiculous.

 

AA did this to themselves. It is an airworthiness issue. One crash and one near crash because of this problem. AA had 18 months to complete these inspections and chose for whatever reason not to. They shouldn't need to be babysat. I have an aircraft maintenance background in the USAF and the airworthiness rules are to be followed, not ignored until you get caught.

[Ms belp]

Local news is reporting that over a quarter of a million passengers have been affected by AA cancellations. They were interviewing people at DFW. One couple has been stranded trying to get back to Indy for 3 days. One man, whose daughter is getting married on Saturday in San Diego, said his daughter and her fiance had their flight cancelled AND, on top of that, AA lost her luggage which included her wedding dress and the wedding rings. But, the bridal couple did find a way out by flying out of Love Field on Southwest. But her father said that the 100 or so guests planning to attend the wedding from Dallas might not make the wedding. Nobody was happy to say the least! They are saying it could be late Saturday evening before everything gets back on track. I think that's being optomistic.

[Jana]

Local news is reporting that over a quarter of a million passengers have been affected by AA cancellations. They were interviewing people at DFW. One couple has been stranded trying to get back to Indy for 3 days. One man, whose daughter is getting married on Saturday in San Diego, said his daughter and her fiance had their flight cancelled AND, on top of that, AA lost her luggage which included her wedding dress and the wedding rings. But, the bridal couple did find a way out by flying out of Love Field on Southwest. But her father said that the 100 or so guests planning to attend the wedding from Dallas might not make the wedding. Nobody was happy to say the least! They are saying it could be late Saturday evening before everything gets back on track. I think that's being optomistic.

 

Which cruise? Is it one out of San Diego? You didn't say.

[cruzeluver]

Folllow-up to my post from yesterday:

 

My parents' original flight Saturday on AA was cancelled. They got re-booked on a slightly later flight. All is well.....or is it? Discovered last night that flight #2 has now also been cancelled. They had been re-booked on another M-80! Dad calls and gets a very nice woman who finds them a flight not on an M-80 arriving close to their original arrival time at LAX. Dad will be checking flight status all throughout the day. What a mess!!

[Carnac767]

AA did this to themselves. It is an airworthiness issue. One crash and one near crash because of this problem. AA had 18 months to complete these inspections and chose for whatever reason not to. They shouldn't need to be babysat. I have an aircraft maintenance background in the USAF and the airworthiness rules are to be followed, not ignored until you get caught.

 

What crash are you referring to? These wire bundles in the wheel well have not contributed to any accident or incident I'm aware of. Airlines are inundated with a barrage of Airworthiness Directives, many of which are subject to vague interpretation. For instance, United had to ground its 777 fleet last week to perform an inspection of the cargo fire suppression system that's not even called for in the Boeing 777 maintenance manual.

 

AA is being hammered for having the wire bundle retainers spaced a half inch too far apart (1.5 inches vs 1 inch). It is not a safety of flight issue. Ordinarily, for something as innocuous as this, a company would be given ten days to comply. This would enable AA to keep the MD-80s flying. But given the current climate, the FAA has to overcompensate for its cozy relationship with Southwest, ironically AA's chief competitor. AA is bearing the financial burden for SW's transgressions. In its effort to appear tough, the FAA is now punishing thousands of travelers. Safety is not the issue here--appearance is.

 

We've enjoyed an unprecedented period of air traffic safety in the U.S.--nearly seven years without a hull loss. I can only speak for the mechanics at my own company--they are very good and very dedicated. That's pretty damn remarkable in light of massive layoffs, pay cuts, and loss of their pension.

[Globaliser]

It is an airworthiness issue. One crash and one near crash because of this problem. AA had 18 months to complete these inspections and chose for whatever reason not to. They shouldn't need to be babysat. I have an aircraft maintenance background in the USAF and the airworthiness rules are to be followed, not ignored until you get caught.

I'm not aware of any crash or near-crash to do with this issue, either.

 

Nobody's suggesting that airworthiness rules should not be followed.

 

Some airworthiness things need to be done quickly. If, for example, a wing might fall off.

 

But others can be done in much slower time, because although they must be done, they are not short-term safety critical. This is an example of the latter. That's why it could be done over a period of 18 months. This is not a wing-falling-off situation.

 

There's no doubt that AA should have done all this by now. But the nature of the problem has a bearing on what the regulator does if the airline has not done it, or not done it properly. If a wing-falling-off problem isn't fix, of course you ground the entire fleet. But if something which is not short-term safety critical is not done, it should be fine to be done over a further two, three or four weeks.

 

So even though AA should not have been in this position, there is also a hysterical over-reaction from the FAA as well, generated purely by the underlyig politics of the situation, which have nothing to do with anything safety-related.

[Carnac767]

The original AD addressing this problem was issued in 2006 and gave airlines 18 months to comply. Obviously it was not an immediate action safety concern or otherwise the FAA would never have allowed such a lengthy compliance window. AA screwed up by not completing the AD correctly, pure and simple, yet the FAA is now using a "sledge hammer to kill a gnat" remedy, purely because of political fallout . . . and the pax booked on AA are collateral damage.

 

The only two MD-80 accidents in the U.S. in the past ten years were the AA overrun at Little Rock and the Alaska Airlines crash off the coast of California. Neither had anything to do with wheel well wiring bundles. The first was attributed to pilot error, compounded by an extremely long duty day and adverse weather; the latter was a mechanical problem with the stab jackscrew.

 

I know we have a lot of nervous fliers out there and current events certainly don't help them. But the risk is highly exaggerated and overblown. Modern aircraft are incredibly safe and the level of expertise and experience of your flight crews, especially at the major airlines, has never been higher. Your biggest risk is the drive to and from the airport.

[Jana]

Here's a note sent to AA employees about the issue:

 

So what happened? After just having completed an inspection a few weeks earlier, what put the MD-80 fleet back in the shop? What will the relationship between American and the FAA look like going forward?

 

Executive Vice President of Operations Bob Reding, speaking on a conference call, took the time to explain the circumstances that led to the second grounding of the MD-80s.

 

Safety Never Compromised

 

But first, he emphasized that at no time had AA ever flown an MD-80 that was at risk of having problems due to wiring in the wheel well. "We took the lead to design a safety net to ensure that no chafing would occur," he said. When the issue was first discovered in 2004, American wrote the original service bulletin to correct the problem.

 

By the time the FAA issued the Airworthiness Directive (AD) in 2006, American had already incorporated the repairs per the service bulletin . "We were well ahead of the AD," Reding explained.

 

But the AD included some minor, yet very specific, differences. Among them, the exact spacing between ties, the position of holding clips and the slack allowed in the wiring bundle. This prompted an Engineering Change Order (ECO) to address the differences.

 

Differences Highly Unusual

 

Everyone recalls the week of March 26, when American had to do some AD reviews as a result of another carrier's failure to comply within a timely manner to an entirely different AD. "When the FAA inspected our aircraft, they found some minor issues such as the tie spacing, the tube installation and the amount of overlap, because the service bulletin was something different than what the AD provided." Reding said this was highly unusual because ADs normally come from service bulletins so the work doesn't have to be done twice.

 

AA completed inspecting, and repairing as necessary, what Reding said were seven specific items and then put the aircraft back in service.

 

Then, on April 7, the FAA went back to inspect what was accomplished two weeks earlier, but then said there were some other items that were not addressed. The FAA discovered that on 8 out of 9 aircraft inspected that there were one or more minor issues. Per American's commitment to be 100 percent compliant with any AD, the company decided it had sufficient concerns to again take the aircraft out of service.

 

Moving Forward

 

"So what are we doing today? We are pretty much removing the work done per the service bulletin from our airplanes, and installing the wire protective system exactly as prescribed by the Airworthiness Directive," Reding said.

 

Going forward, Reding said American will change procedures to match the new way the FAA is handling ADs. "We have learned this is a new day with the FAA and we will ensure moving forward that we will meet all new requirements."

 

"I can't express my thanks and appreciation enough for the efforts of all of our front line managers and employees, our AMTs, our STORES people, our pilots, our flight attendants - all the people that touch our customers, including reservations and all of our support teams that have worked diligently to get 300 aircraft modified to these exacting specifications."

Here's a photo of the wire wrapping: