<p>They got spanked for lax inspections so now they are bringing the entire system into chaos?? I’m all for safe planes but this is obviously a case of overkill to make some point. KNOCK IT OFF.</p>
<p>I suspect that the reasoning behind the airlines actions is the unanticipated higher cost of fuel. Their point is: It’s just cheaper Not To Operate under such conditions. </p>
<p>The airlines are preforming a corporate, “Follow FAA rules to the letter”, strike action.</p>
<p>and gosh, this is what happens when you expect corportations to monitor themselves and you trust them to do the right thing</p>
<p>they only do the right thing when forced </p>
<p>Why weren’t those corporations taking care of business all along, to blame just the FAA in this seems kind of silly</p>
<p>Seems that when corporations say they don’t need watching and will do the right thing just because its a whole lot of lip service</p>
<p>Gosh! Is there anything you’re not bitter about?</p>
<p>No company cancels 100’s of flights on short notice–especially one like American with many heavy business users. The FAA is just showing Congress it can be tough–an the chaos that will happen if they follow the letter of the regulations.</p>
<p>Have I missed something: SW Airlines is not part of the recent cancelations? Was SW’s problems as the company represented and therefore already fixed?</p>
<p>Nope. mostly American and a few others using the MD 80 planes. The problem is in the wiring harness in the landing gear wells. Apparently some of the wire ties are not exactly in the right place to the millimeter.</p>
<p>Think of the poor booking agents trying to accomodate all that mess…</p>
<p>I read somewhere yesterday that several airlines are returning to turboprops for short hauls because they are more fuel efficient. AH-- the “good” old days.</p>
<p>I’m glad they’re forced to comply. My kids travel cross country several times a year. I only wish the airlines had made the changes when they were cited last year. They could have spread out the grounded flights and managed this more gradually.
Times are tough financially for all of the airlines, but we don’t want them cutting costs on safety. This is what they are doing. Why else would they not have made these changes when they were first ordered to?
We’ll all have to pay more for our air travel. Between the fuel costs and the increased costs of maintenance, bargain days are over.</p>
<p>Talking about having to pay: baggage allowances are getting smaller, the excess baggage charges are getting higher and the charge for unaccompanied minors are soaring.</p>
<p>I am far from convinced that the real issue in this case is safety–but rather bureaucrats exacting their revenge on the public for their overly lax prior actions. “You want safety–we’ll give you more safety than you can handle”. We all know no system works when things are suddenly changed to strict by the book regulation. Unions call that a work slowdown.</p>
<p>“They got spanked for lax inspections so now they are bringing the entire system into chaos?? I’m all for safe planes but this is obviously a case of overkill to make some point. KNOCK IT OFF.”</p>
<p>So what I read in my local paper (I have no other source of information), is that the so-called bureaucrats did NOT force the plane cancellations. In fact, they gave the airlines 18 months to deal with the problem, on the assumption that they could do it slowly, incrementally, without any disruption to the system whatsoever. But the airlines figured they weren’t serious (or they would have shut them down immediately), so sat on their hands for 18 months while the profits rolled in. </p>
<p>The FAA had NOTHING to do with the “short notice” cancellations - it’s just the usual corporate socialist buckpassing.</p>