Plane groundings create snags for Logan travelers

Passengers wait to check in at the Delta Air Lines ticket counter at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago yesterday, when American Airlines and Delta canceled hundreds of flights. (Frank Polich/Reuters)

American Airlines Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. - which fly the most passengers through Boston's Logan International Airport - canceled at least a dozen Boston flights in the past two days to inspect aircraft for compliance with federal safety standards.

Nationwide, the airlines scrubbed about 734 flights yesterday and Wednesday - amounting to 6 percent of American's daily flights and 3 percent of Delta's. The airlines were trying to make sure a bundle of wires associated with landing gear was laced as the Federal Aviation Administration prescribed.

While the airlines offered to rebook travelers and in some cases issued refunds, the cancellations left some passengers stranded. Because cost-burdened airlines are cutting back on US flights and using smaller planes, there are fewer seats for passengers whose flights have been canceled.

Delta passenger Renata Teixeira discovered that when she walked up to the check-in counter at Logan yesterday afternoon.

"The girl just told me, 'Your flight has been canceled. You will have to wait until tomorrow,' " said the 31-year-old oil company analyst, who was in town for a conference about technology and innovation. "I said, 'I don't have anywhere to stay. I have to go home. Please!' "

The Delta agent booked Teixeira on a same-day flight back to Rio De Janeiro, connecting through Atlanta. But shortly afterward, Teixeira found out her new flight was delayed. "Today is not my day," she said.

Such mass flight cancellations are rare. This round arose because the airlines decided to inspect their planes after the FAA this month fined Southwest Airlines Co. for not conducting such checks on the lacing of the wires yet flying passengers on the airplanes anyway. According to the FAA, if the cord's lacing is spaced too far apart, the plane could lose auxiliary hydraulic power for the landing gear or a fire could spark near the fuel tanks.

By today, the FAA will decide if all US airlines are complying with at least 10 of its most serious safety orders. That's left some airlines scrambling.

Delta, Logan's second-largest carrier, already inspected the wiring on its MD-88 aircraft earlier this year but voluntarily decided to recheck. As a result, it scratched several flights departing from Boston yesterday, including flights to New York's LaGuardia Airport.

Delta spokeswoman Susan Chana Elliott wouldn't give the exact number of canceled Boston flights. But Logan's online, real-time flight database showed Delta canceled at least 13 of yesterday's flights between Logan and LaGuardia, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Atlanta. However, it was not clear if the safety inspection was the reason for those cancellations.

By late afternoon, Elliott said she didn't know whether the wiring on any of the Delta planes needed to be fixed.

American, Logan's largest airline, canceled 10 flights Wednesday and nine yesterday that were supposed to fly between Boston and Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, or St. Louis on the MD-80 aircraft, which seats about 130 passengers. The airline discovered the lacing cords on 80 of the 203 MD-80s it checked Wednesday needed to be fixed so they would only be 1 inch apart, as the FAA requires.

John Goglia, an aviation maintenance specialist and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the swath of cancellations wasn't necessary - both because cords spaced too far apart won't cause "an immediate catastrophic failure" and because airlines should have caught and corrected the mistake in a timely manner.

He also predicted this cluster of service disruptions won't become the norm.

"This little bump in the road that we're having with all these problems, we'll get over it," Goglia said. "How are we going to make sure we don't get into this same pickle again? The FAA will change the way it monitors the airlines," conducting its own inspections that are more robust than the airlines' self-inspections that the agency simply oversees.

Airlines also would be prudent to inspect their aircraft more often, especially older planes, said Ed Faberman, executive director of the Air Carrier Association of America. But they can do that without canceling a lot of flights if they integrate a longer list of items into routine maintenance.

Both Delta and American expected to finish their inspections last night and proceed with today's flights as planned.

Ashley L. Traupman of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Nicole C. Wong can be reached at nwong@globe.com.