American Airlines canceled almost 1,100 flights, or nearly half its schedule, on Wednesday to reinspect aircraft, a disruption that affected about 100,000 passengers and triggered chaos at the busiest US airports.

The airline said it expects about 900 cancellations yesterday.

The disruption at the No 1 domestic airline, a unit of AMR Corp, follows 460 cancellations on Tuesday and hundreds of cancellations two weeks ago. The March disruption was for the same reason as this week's problem - to ensure compliance with a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety directive on wiring inspections for MD-80 aircraft.

"We have obviously failed to comply with the airworthiness directive to the precise standards that the FAA requires," AMR Chief Executive Gerard Arpey said at a news conference in Los Angeles. "I take full personal responsibility."

Delta Air Lines Inc canceled about two dozen flights on Wednesday and Alaska Airlines, 14, to address the same situation on their MD-80s. Delta canceled hundreds of flights at the same time as American in late March.

Dan Garton, American's marketing chief, told reporters in a conference call the carrier hoped to have full operations by Saturday. "We're working hard to get the airline back to normal," Garton said.

Airline officials could not estimate the hit financially but Arpey said the episode would be "costly." A spokesman estimated about 100,000 passengers were affected by the 1,094 cancellations.

American said in a statement on Tuesday the FAA raised new concerns about recent wiring inspections and related work on the narrowbody MD-80 aircraft. The airline's 300 aging MD-80s make up nearly half of AMR's fleet.

Agencies

(China Daily 04/11/2008 page12)