American: Back to normal on Sunday
The chaos facing air travelers on American Airlines is almost over.
On Saturday, American (AMR, Fortune 500) received clearance from federal aviation officials to return all of its remaining 300 grounded jets to service, an airline spokesman said.
But it won’t be until Sunday morning before the MD-80s can be positioned throughout the American system to fly a full day’s schedule, spokesman Charley Wilson said.
The airline grounded 595 flights, or 25% of its schedule, on Friday and 200 more on Saturday. Those cancellations marked a week of of trouble for American - the nation’s largest airline - which has canceled nearly 2,500 flights affecting some 300,000 passengers.
Overall, U.S. carriers have shut down about 3,700 flights since late March in response to failed Federal Aviation Administration safety inspections of MD-80 airplanes. The FAA is conducting industrywide inspections of all jets that will continue through the end of June.
The canceled flights have reduced air travel to a crawl for many passengers. They come at a difficult time in air travel: Carriers are being hammered by ever-higher fuel costs and passengers are facing rising tickets prices and delays.
"It’s a very troubled time for the industry," said Air Travelers Association president David Stempler. "It leaves passengers in a very unsettled state."
What American customers can do
American on Friday was asking customers booked on MD-80 flights to check their flight status on the airline’s Web site, AA.com. Filers can also call the airline’s standard reservation telephone number, 800-433-7300.
The company said customers whose flights were canceled can apply for a full refund or credit toward another ticket.
Any flyer booked onboard a MD-80 aircraft between April 8 and April 13 can re-book for free as long as they fly by April 17, even if the flight has not been canceled, according to the airline. American is allowing only one ticket change.
American also urges customers who were forced to stay overnight due to a cancellation to request compensation by filling out an email form.
The airline is leaving "no stone unturned" to find seats for bumped passengers, said American Airlines spokesman Roger Frizzell. American will try to seat bumped passengers in the empty seats of existing flights, and even try to seat customers on competitors’ flights if none are available, he said.
Bumped passengers will likely not supersede booked passengers on flights that are still scheduled to fly, he added.
The airline expects to have 60% of its MD-80 flights in operation by the end of Friday, according to Frizzell payday loans. "By end-of-day Saturday, our hopes are that our airline will be back to normal," he said.
Stempler said he recommends passengers reschedule their flights - for another time or on another airline. He urged passengers to try to get on direct flights. "You don’t want to get stranded at an intermediary city," he said.
Airport headaches
More than 31% of U.S. commercial flights were delayed, canceled or diverted in February, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. That’s a jump from 2007, when 26% of flights were delayed.
"Nowadays travelers have to be like boy scouts — they have to be prepared for every eventuality," said Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com.
Last year was the worst on record for airline delays since the government began collecting that data in 1995.
And the outlook for flight delays this summer is not good, according to Seaney. Since airlines have been cutting back on capacity, flight delay and cancellation problems in the coming months are "not likely to get much better" compared to last summer, he said.
This week, the mood at airports from Chicago to Dallas to New York was grim as frustrated passengers did their best to cope with the cancellations.
The delays Wednesday and Thursday wreaked havoc on the plans of travelers who were forced to reschedule vacations and business trips at the last minute. Faced with the prospect of overnight delays, many travelers raced to make other travel arrangements while others settled in and tried to relax.
While most passengers acknowledged that safety inspections are important, many blamed American for mismanaging the way it conducts the inspections and said the airline was ultimately responsible for the chaos that unfolded at airports across the country this week.
- The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Filed under: business by Wolf