American Airline Cancleations

American Airlines canceled 922 flights today вЂ" including 16 that were to depart from Logan International Airport вЂ" as the world’s largest carrier continued its struggle with aircraft safety inspections.

Today’s cancellations followed nearly 1,000 on Wednesday. This week, about 171,000 passengers nationwide were affected as the airline grounded all 300 of its Boeing MD-80s, which comprise 45 percent of the 655- aircraft fleet, in order to inspect a cord that is lashed around a bundle of wires in the wheel shaft.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires that the lashes be spaced no more than one inch apart and face the same direction, among other things. Otherwise, the cord could chafe the wires and cause the plane to lose auxiliary hydraulic power for the landing gear or spark a fire near the fuel tanks.

American canceled flights two weeks ago to inspect this part but had to do more a comprehensive inspection this week.

American’s chief executive, Gerard Arpey, told reporters the airline has not found chafed wires in the 100 airplanes on which it has completed inspections this week. The carrier put those planes back into service this morning.

The airline predicts it will have about 210 MD-80 planes in service by Friday night and all 300 of the aircraft ready by Saturday night. But Arpey refrained from pinning down a date when American’s schedules would return to normal.

вЂ?вЂ?Obviously, it’s going to take us several more days to get up to speed,вЂ™Ð²Ð‚™ Arpey said. вЂ?вЂ?I can’t anticipate any more hiccups we might encounter.вЂ™Ð²Ð‚™

American scrubbed more than 2,470 flights this week. Today’s 16 canceled departures at Logan prevented about 1,600 passengers from flying to Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, and St. Louis. Roughly the same number of American flights and passengers from those three destinations did not arrive at Logan as scheduled.

The FAA is doing a mass inspection of commercial planes through June 30 and has warned that more travel disruptions are likely.

Logan hasn’t been affected as much as other airports because it isn’t a hub. Cancellations at