American Airlines Wednesday morning canceled most of its flights that use Boeing MD-80 aircraft, an airline spokesman said. Included are a number of flights at O'Hare International Airport.
In all, about 200 of the airline's 2,200 daily flights were canceled.
The airline said that about two-thirds of its 300-plane MD-80 fleet had been temporarily grounded. .
American has canceled 29 departing flights scheduled to depart
O'Hare before 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to a Chicago Aviation Department Web site. Many other flights were operating normally, however.
"We're just making sure an airworthiness directive was followed," said airline spokesman John Hotard. He said the airline would issue a fuller statement later this morning.
The action by American was voluntary and not ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration, said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory. An airworthiness directive is a legally enforceable rule issued by the FAA to correct an unsafe condition in an aviation product. Air carriers are responsible for complying with all such directives.
The Boeing MD-80 is a relatively quiet, fuel-efficient twinjet aircraft.
The FAA earlier had expressed concern about older model Boeing 737 jetliners.
At O'Hare Wednesday morning, several hundred American passengers were waiting with little information.
Cynthia Gonzalez and her family were supposed to get on a 7:45 a.m. flight to Denver for a ski trip. "This is our second spring break in a row where we've had plans on American Airlines and we've been canceled," she said. "Needless to say, we are less than pleased."
On Tuesday, federal regulators ordered inspections for hundreds of older model Boeing 737 jetliners after numerous reports of fuel leaks caused by a potentially faulty bolt.
In August, a fire destroyed a China Airlines 737 when a bolt from a right wing slat pierced the jetliner's fuel tank. All 165 people aboard evacuated unharmed just before the Boeing plane exploded on a tarmac in Okinawa, Japan.
The FAA later that month ordered inspections of similar newer model 737s, but expanded the order to older models because of their design similarities, agency spokesman Les Dorr said Tuesday.
"Boeing notified us of numerous reports of fuel leaks from older models, but no fires," Dorr said.
The order affected 652 aircraft in the U.S. and a total of more than 3,500 worldwide. U.S. carriers must get the planes inspected within 90 days of the FAA order's effective date of April 8, Dorr said. The safety checks are to detect and fix a bolt that can fall off and puncture the aircraft's fuel tanks.
Among the carriers affected by the new order are: Delta Air Lines Inc.,
Continental Airlines Inc., Southwest,
UAL Corp.'s
United Airlines and others.
That action was not related to a
Southwest Airlines Co. probe that showed it continuing to fly nearly 50 Boeing 737s that hadn't been inspected for cracks in their fuselages, Dorr said. Southwest is facing a $10.2 million fine in that case -- the largest civil penalty the FAA has ever proposed against a carrier -- but the company has said it will appeal.
On March 11, Southwest Airlines grounded 41 aircraft until it could verify with the FAA that it had correctly followed an airworthiness directive related to inspection of 737-300 and 737-500 aircraft.
The following week, Federal Aviation Administrator Robert Sturgell directed the federal aviation inspectors to reconfirm that commercial carriers operating within the United States have complied with all airworthiness directives. Sturgell noted that one recent failure to comply with one such directive prompted him to validate that all other carriers were in full compliance.
That initial review would be completed by Friday, he said.