American Airlines has so far canceled nearly 3,000 flights this week due to wiring inspections, stranding a quarter of a million passengers.
When it comes to flying, safety is paramount, but it seems that the wiring problem isn't critical. So naturally, some people are asking why the mass grounding:
But were wiring concerns serious enough to warrant such massive cancellations? Should the airlines have inconvenienced so many people at once? Was the flying public's safety actually at risk? [...]
American is reinspecting its planes after securing the wire bundles a quarter of an inch too far apart. Delta found it had an issue with the protective sleeving it was supposed to have wrapped around a certain part of the wire bundles. [...]
John Eakin, aviation safety consultant and president of Air Data Research in Helotes, Texas, spent this week looking over the reports issued in the years before 2006 that prompted the FAA to issue the requirement in the first place.
The reports were not serious enough a problem to prompt this week's mass cancellations, Eakin said.
"What I see is just routine stuff," said Eakin, who has worked as a pilot and mechanic for 40 years. "I don't have any sense that there was any imminent danger of the airplane falling out of the sky, if you will. That's not to say that it couldn't. Obviously, someone along the way has determined that this has the potential to cause serious damage."
"I would think that if it was likely to cause a problem, they wouldn't have taken six or seven or eight years to do the paperwork," Eakin said.
If you're one of the passengers inconvenienced, I feel your pain. I used to travel by air a great deal (internationally and domestically), and I've never had much problem - until I traveled with American Airlines (why? I'll tell you in the comment).
Link (Photo: FlyGuy92586 [Flickr])
Things went wrong almost immediately: American Airlines lost our luggage when we arrived in Paris. This would be an inconvenience for any traveler, but it's a MAJOR inconvenience for a family traveling with a baby (We packed our baby food in the luggage).
When they finally delivered our bags, they didn't give us any receipt proving that they lost our luggage. When we said to them we'd need some sort of paperwork so we can claim our expenses to our travel insurance, they simply couldn't be bothered.
When we arrived in Boston for our return trip, our connecting flight to Los Angeles was canceled and we had to stay overnight in Boston. (We had ran out of baby food at this time, but it was easily available in supermarkets in the States).
And that leg was canceled permanently - we had to fly to Chicago and then to Los Angeles. Fine. So we did. And when we arrived at Chicago - our flight to LA was ... you guessed it - canceled!
After hundreds of people scrambled to rebook their flights, the flight was un-canceled! Those people who ran to the front and got on another flight couldn't get back on this one!
For all of our troubles, AA sent us a $100 voucher, which I promptly just throw away. I like the people in AA (they're much nicer than United, which has surly stewardesses - oh except in France, they're all rude), but AA's planes are just too old.
This sums it up nicely.
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Daily-Show-skewers-the-FAA-Bush-on-airline-safety
That's odd about your experience with United stewardesses. They're my favorite of any American carrier. The worst I've dealt with are Frontier's people.
The turbulence is terrible, as the wings are in the very back of the damn plane.
that had to have been the only time I got sick on an airplane.
Ride Southwest Airlines. They're been the best to us.
Granted this was during some sort of a paycheck reduction / protest time period, so maybe they had changed since then.
One thing's for sure: American Airline planes are old ...
The bundles were tied, but some aren't exactly 1 inches apart: 1 inch and a quarter to an inch to a half. And this isn't exactly a new problem: it was diagnosed as early as 2006.
Some experts say that while it's a problem that definitely should be fixed, it's not a critical problem. It's not a problem that require mass groundings of all MD-80 airplanes. Some even said that the grounding is an effort by the authorities to appear tough.
they aren't bitching about the flights being repaired, I don't think anyone would argue with that, but its the way it was done. Canceling 3000 flights in 3 days? C'mon, why couldn't have these repairs been done over months? AA knew there was a problem, its not like this just crept up on them. Very poor management at work here.
I was flying back and forth Boston and Paris with AA and never had to complain, and yes their crew was really friendly.
I was waiting in their Paris lounge to come back to Boston in the 9/11 morning, and even during this mayhem they still were ok.
So I guess you really ran out of luck with them. Or, their service really went down the drain lately...
I flew Virgin once and it was ok. The only time I 'flew' Air France was the time we moved to France, with our baby. This was just after a big -20 deg winter storm, and the stupid Air France maintenance crew did not plug a heather and plenty of the plane's pipes burst frozen. They did not communicate until we got to the Logan airport. We manage to get to a Swissair flight, via Zurich. Their crew was openly amused by the Air France competence ;)
With Swissair, in US and Switzerland, our baby always made us VIP, cutting lines and whatnot. Cool.
As for the French hability for a warm and business like welcome? Man, you're giving them work, why should they welcome you???