American Cancels 1,000 More Flights For Inspection

Passengers on American Airlines found themselves facing confusion and long delays on Wednesday after the carrier canceled more than 1,000 flights, as its efforts to inspect and in some cases reattach wiring bundles in the wheel wells of its 300-plane fleet of MD-80s dragged on.

More cancellations are expected Thursday.

Moving to head off any loss of confidence in its safety procedures, American said it planned to hire an outside contractor to review its compliance with airworthiness directives from the Federal Aviation Administration.

“This work will ensure that all procedures strictly adhere to the technical elements of every directive so American can avoid this type of schedule disruption in the future,” the carrier said in a written statement.

The F.A.A. grants airlines much autonomy to fix and inspect planes, reviewing and auditing work after the fact. But in recent weeks it became clear that some airlines had not kept up with all the work. At least 500 flights were canceled Tuesday.

Shares of the AMR Corporation, the parent of American Airlines, were down $1.12, to $9.20 in late afternoon trading.

An American spokesman, Tim Wagner, said Wednesday morning that only 30 of the 300 single-aisle MD-80s were so far cleared of the inspection process and operating. The company was planning a news conference to discuss the problems.

The work is going more slowly than American had hoped. “It took a little while to get all the teams in place last night,” Mr. Wagner said of the effort to dispatch mechanics and other workers to eight cities where the work is being done.

Then, a thunderstorm and lightning in the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport area kept workers off the ramp for a time during the night, he added.

American is trying to notify passengers via e-mails, text messages sent to cellphones, by phone calls and via travel agents. Information on canceled flights is also available on www.aa.com, the company’s Web site.

But Mr. Wagner said he did not know how many passengers had been reached and how many had been accommodated on other flights. Because the problem is within American’s control, it has been paying for hotel rooms, meals and ground transportation for thousands of inconvenienced passengers, he said.

“We probably ran out of hotel rooms in some places,” he said.

The cancellations hit American’s biggest hubs hardest, an early tally totaling 850 showed: 208 at Dallas/Fort Worth, 138 at O’Hare International in Chicago; 33 at LaGuardia in New York; 28 at St. Louis; and 20 in Austin, Tex.

Long lines were reported early Wednesday at American terminals around the country. By midday at LaGuardia, the lines had mostly diminished by midday, but several passengers in the terminal said their plans had been disrupted by the cancellations.

Kathleen Creamer, 30, an Internet saleswoman from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said she had been scheduled to fly to Dallas on a 7:40 a.m. flight that was canceled. She said American Airlines had arranged for her to fly on a Continental Airlines aircraft taking off later in the day from Newark International Airport.

“It’s a 100 percent inconvenience,” Ms. Creamer said. “But the airline has been helpful.”

Rebooking people on other flights, even other airlines, could be difficult because the airline industry is running its planes very full — at 80 percent or more. Airlines have been grounding planes because of high fuel prices and in an effort to limit supply and force up fares to cover fuel costs.

American does not know at this point how many flights it might have to cancel Thursday, Mr. Wagner said.

The maintenance problem came up as part of the F.A.A.’s industry-wide examination of compliance with inspection directives. The agency has found scores of planes out of compliance thus far, grounding planes and leading to canceled flights at other airlines, including Southwest Airlines and United Airlines.

American had inspected the wiring bundles and thought it had the problem fixed two weeks ago. But the F.A.A., upon looking at the planes earlier this week, found some bundles were wrapped and attached to the wheel wells incorrectly, and ordered them redone.

Alaska Airlines said Wednesday that it was also inspecting its nine MD-80s for compliance with the wire bundle directive. Alaska canceled three flights Tuesday night and 14 so far Wednesday, it said.

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

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