American Airlines Cancels 900 more Flights

4/10/2008 Fresno, CA The boards tell the story, and Thursday is more of the same at airports throughout the country. American Airlines is canceling more than 900 flights because most of the planes that were spot checked, failed. Passengers' patience and nerves are frayed. The safety audit revealed more concerns with wiring that could lead to an electrical short, or a fire. This isn't news to American. The airline grounded flights 2 weeks ago to re-install the wiring. But the repairs didn't fix the problem. This week, nearly 1 in 3 flights have been canceled. This means in total, about 250-million American passengers will have been stranded. American officials say the airline acted when the safety concerns were flagged. "...this kind of interruption is truly unacceptable and we are doing everything we can right now to try to help our customers," said Vice President of American Airlines Daniel Garton. It's not just American that has safety concerns. Delta and Alaska cancelled about a dozen of their own flights Thursday. All this comes in light of revelations that the federal aviation agency did not enforce safety rules at southwest airlines. Fixing this problem will be expensive for American airlines: they're offering food and hotel vouchers for passengers, rerouting them on other airlines, paying overtime to mechanics. But only the passengers will determine if these measures are enough to restore their confidence.