Tripso.com had it right when they said the FAA order that resulted in the grounding of AA’s MD-80 fleet back in April was a CYA operation.
The tripso.com piece noted:
Both the FAA and the airlines know that the airline fleets are safe in the United States, perhaps the safest in the world. But both are now being hoisted on the petards of technical rules that they played loose with or ignored.
Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said that the FAA was “chicken” for grounding the 299 American Airlines MD-80s. He went on to say, “FAA inspectors were more concerned about covering themselves than they were about American or its passengers.”
Bravo! But, the only ones that paid the price were the passengers who had to scramble through the mass cancellations, that could have been avoided with courage from either the FAA or AA executives.
Tags: american airlines, cancellations, delays, FAA
