300 flights canceled for inspections

An American Airlines jet leaves a gate at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport yesterday. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

FORT WORTH - American Airlines canceled about 300 flights yesterday so its crews could inspect some wire bundles aboard its MD-80 aircraft.

The cancellations represent about 13 percent of the estimated 2,300 flights American had scheduled for the day.

The highest concentrations of the cancellations were in the airline's hubs at Dallas-Fort Worth and Chicago O'Hare international airports.

American initially put the number of cancellations at 200, but spokesman Tim Wagner said that was a conservative estimate because the airline prefers to hold off on cancellations as long as possible.

The entire fleet of MD-80s is being inspected, Wagner said.

The need for the new inspections became known during an audit of American by a joint team of inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Fort Worth-based airline, Wagner said.

The inspection involves proper spacing between two bundles of wires in the auxiliary hydraulic system, Wagner said.

Wagner did not have an estimate of how many planes had completed the inspection and returned to service, and he couldn't say whether cancellations would continue into today.

Separately, Delta Air Lines said it was voluntarily reinspecting wiring on 133 MD-88 and MD-90 airplanes. However, it had no estimate yesterday on how many flights it might need to cancel, a spokeswoman said.

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