American wiring woes continue to worsen

After canceling more than 1,000 flights Wednesday, American is scrubbing another 900 today. And yet more flights could bite the dust tomorrow.

Airline spokesman Tim Wagner said late Wednesday afternoon that 60 planes had been cleared to fly, 119 were being worked on, and 121 planes had not yet been inspected.

And, oh, yes, it’s having an impact on the American bottom line already. Parent company AMR dropped 11 percent on the Street Wednesday.

And, like Southwest Airlines, this has to be a longer-term trust factor for the flying public:

Airline executives said they thought they had fixed the wiring two weeks ago, when they canceled more than 400 flights to inspect and in some cases fix the shielding around the wires in their MD-80 aircraft.

But this week, Federal Aviation Administration inspectors, who have been conducting stepped-up surveys of airline compliance with safety rules called airworthiness directives, said 15 of 19 American jets they examined flunked. That left the airline no choice but to ground all 300 of its MD-80s, the most common jet in American's 655-plane fleet.

So, on random inspection, 75 percent of American’s work flunked? Score one, belatedly, for the FAA getting religion on getting more hands-on with maintenance compliance.

Oh, and this can’t help American’s future image with the FAA, or with the more savvy part of the flying public: Crying that the FAA changed the regulatory tables. Nice.

But, it certainly won’t be just American and Southwest Airlines in the FAA limelight in the longer haul.

Midwest Airlines also grounded planes over wiring harnesses today.