Anyone flying American Airlines soon????????

CBS news last night ran a news item where American Airlines ( AA ) have grounded its fleet of MD80%26#39;s.

All 300 of them for an indefinite period, and have canceled thousands of flights.

While good aircraft of their day are now well past their sell by date.

So anyone flying AA to the US and expecting a connecting flight which will almost certainly be scheduled for one of these aircraft to do the internal flight .

Might be a good Idea to check if they will be flying your connection.

The last thing you want is to fly to the US , then spend your 2 weeks holiday stuck in a americian Hub airport.

Anyone flying American Airlines soon????????

Oh my god| yes we are flying with AA via Chicago to Orlando onApril 25th - Anyone else in the same boat? Will definately be checking with AA on the position and will post info on forum

Anyone flying American Airlines soon????????

We are off to Orlando via Miami on 26th April - keep me posted - might ring them myself tomorrow.

I suppose I could get my hire car in Miami and drive up to New Smyrna but after a 9 hour flight you just wanna have a rest from the seat recliners - ooops sorry that forum topic was closed!!

Found on the website -

Aircraft Inspections Affect Some AA Travel

We are very sorry for inconveniencing you with the cancellation of a portion of American Airlines%26#39; flights which started on April 8. Additional inspections of our MD-80 fleet are being conducted to ensure precise and complete compliance with the FAA%26#39;s directive related to wiring in the aircraft%26#39;s wheel wells. For more information about the progress of the inspections, please check our Press Releases. Please be assured that safety of our customers is, and always will be, American%26#39;s first priority. For more information about your flight, please check Gates %26amp; Times.

Customers who were inconvenienced with overnight stays may Email American Airlines Customer Relations to request information about compensation. Within the email form, please select ';April 8/9/10 Flight Disruptions'; from the Email Subject drop down menu. Please provide the flight number on which you were scheduled to travel and a brief description of your circumstances in the message area provided.

Reservation Changes Due To Aircraft Inspections

Customers who were scheduled on a flight that was cancelled may request a full refund or may apply the value of their ticket towards future travel on American Airlines. Additionally, customers scheduled to travel on any MD-80 flight from April 8 - 13, even if their flight has not been cancelled, may rebook without a change fee to any AA flight with availability in the same cabin as long as their travel begins by April 17, as shown below:

If you are traveling to, from or through... On the following dates... And your ticket was issued no later than... You may change your reservation to begin travel as late as...

Cities served by MD-80 aircraft April 8-13, 2008 April 8, 2008 April 17, 2008

One ticketed change is allowed, and no change fee will apply.

For assistance, contact our Reservations personnel at 1-800-433-7300 within the United States or Canada. If you are calling from outside the United States or Canada, please check our Worldwide Reservations Numbers page for Reservations contact information.

Booked to fly AA in June to St. Maarten. Not looking very promising @ this point. AA is the worst about not being able to see past the next flight so I question any info they provide @ this point. FAA reported today that it would be end of June before all inspections could possibly be done so who knows what flights will be cancelled.

For those of you who havn%26#39;t dealt with AA recently, my experience has been that if flight ';A'; leaves in 1 hr and your on flight ';B'; which leaves in 2 hrs from the same gate and flight ';A'; gets delayed due to any condition, they only update info on flight ';A'; and still leave flight ';B'; posted ';On Time';. It doesn%26#39;t matter that flight ';A'; has not left the gate and it%26#39;s 10 min. until time for flight ';B'; to take off, they only deal with flight ';A'; and tell passengers on flight ';B'; that their system shows flight ';B'; is still on time. Once flight ';A'; gets off the ground then they move on to flight ';B'; and only then do they inform you ';Sorry, your flight has been CANCELLED';. Yes, I%26#39;m ranting here but this has happened to me more than once. And NO, I would not be flying AA if it weren%26#39;t for the fact that I have so many stinking AirMiles with them that I just can%26#39;t bear to not try to use them up. Be assured though, I no longer purchase tickets on AA, it is all redemption of earned AirMiles. I have considered donating my AirMiles to someone, but I have yet to find someone I dislike that much!!

My fiance and I are due to fly out next Thursday for a weekend getaway. Unfortunately we%26#39;re booked with AA :( As long as we can cancel our hotel reservation in time w/no penalty I guess I can deal with not going. I%26#39;ll just be bummed that we wasted two vac. days for nothing! Stupid airlines. Hopefully this little fiasco will be resolved in time for the rest of you guys though...

We were booked on AA from Denver to Orlando on 4/12 routing through Dallas...both segments on an MD80. Got the call this morning that the flight was cancelled. They offered to route us out on Sunday 4/13 (late PM flight arriving in the AM on 4/14). Nope, not gonna work....I forced the issue and we are on a United flight (non stop) on 4/12...we had first class on the AA flight and have economy on the United flight but we have a confirmed flight and seats (on an A320) and I have aleady filed a claim on AA.com for the refund of the first class fare. This is the second time this has happened...several weeks ago, I was in LA on business and had to take an alternate flight back - MD80 issue then as well.

Hopefully this is the last time they ground the fleet.....

M

People on this side of the pond and on this forum have in the not to distant past bitterly complained about airlines like TCD, Monarch , Thomas Cook, Globspan for using what they call old aircraft.

And implying by that they were unsafe an unreliability tatty.

But they were talking about Aircraft like 747, the early versions of A330, %26amp; 767,757.

Yet ar quit content to use Hub Airports in the US where they get MD80%26#39;s %26amp; 727 to do their onward flight without batting an eyelid.

Neither of these aircraft have see the production line for more than 30 years

And all are older than Concord which has been out of service a few years now.

But some of these people go to air shows and pay for pleasure flights On the DC3 Dakota when the youngest of these are 60 years old

Just shows how irrational us humans are.

Hi Pumpman - you can dislike me if you like - lol - how many AA miles you got for me ;-)

Di

American claims that everything will be back on schedule by this weekend at the NYC airports-but that these same problems can be expected throughout the summer on all airlines. I had a flight scheduled yesterday from LGA-MCO and was rescheduled onto another airline at no extra charge online but it%26#39;s very hit or miss and a lot of people are stranded.

The morning news said that another 570 flights were grounded again today.....yikes.....

are you responsible