Make that Does It Again.
Leslie

Me, March 6 with US Air, and no refund YET!

Well I know it is an inconvience but I personally would rather be safe than sorry.

Well that's a given. They should have been checking them all along, keeping them in shape. Not canceling 1,000 flights in 1 day. It took someone doing his job, and blowing the whistle on those who weren't, to get them to check the planes.

What a mess.

Very few are mechanical problems, actually. Most are pilot shortage. It seemed initially, some of the airlines were blaming the pilots, but the FAA and/or unions put a stop to that. By FAA regulations, pilots can only fly x number of hours per week, so they had to stop saying it was the pilots' fault. Now, they blame it on whatever is convenient at the time. It isn't likely 500 or nearly a thousand planes have mechanical issues. But, once you cancel one of a plane's stops, all of that plane's stops have to be canceled since it isn't going to make it to the other destinations either. That's how they add up.

the mechanic i knew for united about drove me crazy with is stories of planes gone unchecked, and signed off...needless to say i didn't fly with them!

I don't think that all these planes have mechanical problems, it's that they have not been checked like they should have; the FAA has let them and all the others get away with this. Just what a plane-o-phobe like me needs to hear, huh?

I'm flying United to Japan in two weeks ... you coulda kept that little story to yourself until I got back in May Susan. :-)

And I am going to Japan on Delta mid May. Wouldn't mind if I got stuck over there so I could play with Jake longer.

Jodi, in two weeks they'll have them all checked out and up to snuff and safer than ever.
Leslie

obviously both times were because of safety issues. FAA is under pressure to force airlines to comply w/ rules and regulations after the public finding out they have not been all these yrs. so now when they find something wrong they pull all planes for inspection and that is what happened at AA. BTW 2 weeks ago AA was told to fix the wiring issue and did it incorrectly and after reinspection were again forced to pull planes. airlines are in a bad position, if they skirt the rules as they have been and something goes wrong they could be mass killers but if they pull planes and cancel flights even for safety they are hated too...

in this day w/ jet fuel costs doubling in 12 months the airlines can not afford to cancel one mostly full flight let alone a thousand. they need to cut losses and start passing on the additional costs to consumers before there are only 1 or 2 airlines left and we pay what they demand. ~ liz

Here is a link that might be useful: cnn FAA american airlines

Here in Minot ND Amtrack has really picked up. Our "nice" airport manager and mayor have been dragging their feet on getting another company. We have only Northwest and we can save over 200.00 by driving to Bismark but people are really using the trains now. Even the Canadians because it is so much cheaper.