BYU NewsNet - Thousands Affected by Canceled Flights

American Airlines left thousands of travelers stranded after canceling 3,079 flights last week because of plane inspections.

"These inspections were conducted to ensure compliance with a Federal Aviation Administration directive related to the bundling of wires in the wheel well of the MD-80 aircraft," American Airlines stated in a news release. "American Airlines apologizes for any inconvenience this activity has created for our customers."

All MD-80 aircraft are being checked for faulty wires near the nose wheel. Wires are supposed to be secured every inch and covered in a sheath to prevent sparks.

American has the largest fleet of any domestic carrier, with 675 planes, 300 of which are MD-80s. MD-80s are a single-aisle, twin-engine aircraft used predominantly in domestic travel.

The airline operates seven daily flights from Salt Lake City. Five of these flights were canceled on Friday, and the Salt Lake City airport anticipated one flight would fly on Saturday, said Barbara Gann, director of public relations and marketing for the airport.

"Salt Lake City is a large Delta hub and one of the things we're doing to re-accommodate passengers is to place them with other airlines," said Tim Smith, spokesman for American Airlines. "When we're short of airplanes, we need to direct those to cities where we need the most lift. It's part of our strategy."

Memphis and Minneapolis, which are Northwest Airlines hubs, were also affected by the cancellations. Planes were redirected to American's hubs, such as Dallas-Ft. Worth, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles.

The FAA directive was issued in 2006 and required precise placement of wire bundling. Thousands of directives are issued every year, many of which are compliance issues rather than safety concerns.

"No one is the worse for wear for it," Smith said. "We do expect to be up to 100 percent by late Saturday."

Cancellations started on Tuesday, with 460 flights grounded and reached its peak on Wednesday with 1,094 canceled flights. Thursday had another 930 cancellations and 595 were canceled Friday.