AMR, Delta wrap up inspections after cancellations
CHICAGO (Reuters) - American Airlines and Delta Air Lines canceled hundreds of flights on Thursday as both wrapped up reinspection of 430 MD-80s to ensure compliance with a government safety directive.
American, a unit of AMR Corp, said it canceled 450 flights on Wednesday and Thursday while 275 flights were canceled by Delta over the same period.
Delta late on Thursday apologized to customers in a statement that also said that voluntarily rechecking a section of aircraft wiring "was the right decision." American conveyed regrets to passengers in a similar statement on its Web site.
The around-the-clock action was related to an industrywide U.S. Federal Aviation Administration audit to assess airline compliance with agency safety directives, most of which require aircraft inspections.
Recently revealed lapses regarding inspections for structural cracks on Southwest Airlines Boeing 737s triggered the audit.
The FAA was on track to complete the first phase of the review by week's end and preliminary information showed a high overall compliance rate, an FAA spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The reinspections at American and Delta stemmed from a 2006 order for airlines to ensure that wiring for an auxiliary hydraulic pump was properly installed and secured to minimize risks for electrical shorts that could spark a fire.
American inspected wiring on nearly all of its 300 narrow body MD-80 aircraft and made any fixes by Thursday morning. The rest of the work, which takes several hours for each plane, was to have been completed Thursday evening, the airline said.
American canceled 318 flights -- about 10 percent of its schedule -- on Wednesday and another 132 flights on Thursday.
Delta said it also expected to complete voluntary reinspection of its 133 MD-series aircraft by late Thursday and return normal service on Friday. The 2-day cancellation of 275 flights affected about 3 percent of its operations.
Separately, US Airways said it recently began voluntarily rechecking paperwork on 85 older model 737s to ensure compliance with the same directives covering structural inspections that Southwest failed to complete.
A US Airways spokesman said the airline has been in compliance to date and has found no problems during the recheck.
Some in Congress have sharply criticized FAA oversight of its own orders and a system that allows airlines to self-report problems to regulators.
Airline shares were mainly lower on Thursday on higher oil prices. On the New York Stock Exchange, American fell 23 cents or 2.7 percent to $8.38, Delta was off 39 cents or 4.5 percent at $8.35, and US Airways slid 33 cents or 3.8 percent to $8.20.
(Reporting by Kyle Peterson in Chicago and John Crawley in Washington, editing by Richard Chang)
