570 Friday flights grounded by American

American’s Flight cancellation spree continues as it cancelled around 570 Friday flights to check wiring defects on MD-80 aircrafts. It is assumed that the normal services won’t be resumed until Saturday.

American has 300 twin-engine, narrow-body MD-80s, almost 50% of American's total of 655 planes.

The inspections are related to a 2006 FAA order to ensure that wiring in the MD-80 wheels is properly installed and the spacing and direction of cords used to secure bundles of wires in the planes' auxiliary hydraulic systems is secured against short circuits.

The airline canceled more than 1,000 flights on Wednesday and 460 flights on Tuesday. The same situation had occurred two weeks ago, after which the airline grounded flights to fix all the problems.

However, this week when Federal Aviation Administration inspected the airplanes, they found that 15 of 19 American jets they examined failed the tests.

"We were not in precise compliance and we need to be," said Gerard Arpey, the company's chief executive. He said he took full responsibility for the airline's failure to comply with a federal safety rule.

He said that the carrier had tried to find an alternative way to grounding the planes, because it did not believe the problem posed an imminent safety threat. But FAA denied any such alternates.

The cancellation of thousands of flights within a week will definitely have an impact on the company’s earnings and is expected to cost American Airlines tens of millions of dollars. But the officials at the company said that the nation's largest carrier can withstand the losses.

The main losses were incurred when it booked people on other airlines. On the other hand, it has saved the fuel that would have been spent on those 2,500 flights.

AMR is already running a tab for meals, hotel rooms and $500 travel vouchers for stranded passenger.

Experts believe that American has fallen victim to FAA’s desperate measures to save its reputation as the agency has been under fire since disclosures last month of its lax enforcement of safety rules at Southwest Airlines Co.

Commenting on FAA’s sudden strictness, Arpey said the agency was doing its job. "The FAA is under its own set of pressures. I believe they are simply holding the industry to a high standard."

Shares of parent AMR Corp., which fell 11 percent the day before, rose 70 cents, or 7.6 percent, to $9.87 Thursday.