American Cancels Hundreds of Flights

American canceled 138 flights out of O'Hare today and as many as 850 flights nationally, stranding passengers and making everyone extremely grumpy.

The flights have been canceled so the airline can inspect its fleet of MD-80 jets "to ensure precise and complete compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration’s airworthiness directive related to the bundling of wires in the aircraft’s wheel wells," according to American's press release, and not "safety-of-flight" matter. This is the same issue that grounded hundreds of flights a few weeks ago.

American is trying to book its passengers on other flights, but our own Tim State is at O'Hare right now and says customer service lines take over an hour and both 800 numbers are useless. [American's press release, Trib, S-T, CBS 2, AP, LA Times]