Arpey to host media briefing at 2 pm EDT, 1 pm CDT

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Jan 5, 2003
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Here's the latest press release on this fiasco:

American Airlines Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey to Host Media Briefing at 1 P.M., CDT

Thursday April 10, 12:40 pm ET

FORT WORTH, Texas, April 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Airlines Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey will host a media briefing today at 1 p.m., CDT, at the company's headquarters to discuss the status of inspections for American's MD-80 fleet and to provide an update on the airline's re-accommodating customers who have been inconvenienced by this activity.

Other important information today:

-- American has canceled 922 flights.
-- 100 of American's 300 MD-80s had completed the inspection process and
were back in service this morning.
-- By 4 p.m., American expects an estimated 130 MD-80s to be in service.
-- By Friday night, American plans to have approximately 210 aircraft in
service.
-- By Saturday night, all 300 MD-80s are expected to be in service.


Customers who were scheduled on a flight that was canceled may request a full refund or apply the value of their ticket toward future travel on American Airlines. Additionally, customers scheduled to travel on any MD-80 flight April 8-11, even if their flight has not been canceled, may rebook without a change fee to any AA flight with availability in the same cabin as long as their travel begins by April 17.

Customers who were inconvenienced with overnight stays should go to AA.com, where a link has been established to request information about compensation. Customers also are encouraged to continue to check AA.com or to contact their travel agents for flight status information.

American apologizes for the inconvenience this activity has created for our customers.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080410/lath517.html?.v=5
 
It sure is funny how one vp claims the mechanics are at fault and the ceo comes out and to say the mechanics are not at fault. Did he see a lot of silver enemas coming his way this weekend???
 
I still don't see where Garton said they're at fault. They did the work, and they took some some reasonable latitude with a paper document to make the modification fit the real world while meeting the intent of the AD.

Presumably, that's been allowed before, since I can't imagine this is the first time there's been an AD involving a wiring bundle. Otherwise, I don't see how the potentially hundreds of mechanics who worked on the fleet could have possibly conspired to screw it up.
 
Toward the end of the briefing, one reporter asked Arpey if the planes were any safer at all with the cable ties one inch apart instead of an inch and a quarter. Arpey said "yes." I suppose the pragmatic answer I was expecting ("No, they really aren't - they're just as safe at 1.25 as at 1.0") would have been met with all-out war by the FAA, so the only acceptable answer was "yes."

He acknowledged that AA's mechanics first noticed the potential problem of wire chafing and that AA wrote the Service Bulletin that evolved into the AD on this issue. Sorta like being hoisted by one's own petard. If you're directly involved in writing the fix to the problem in concert with Boeing, you'd better satisfy those requirements exactly.

Still, this isn't a safety of flight issue.
 
Toward the end of the briefing, one reporter asked Arpey if the planes were any safer at all with the cable ties one inch apart instead of an inch and a quarter. Arpey said "yes." I suppose the pragmatic answer I was expecting ("No, they really aren't - they're just as safe at 1.25 as at 1.0") would have been met with all-out war by the FAA, so the only acceptable answer was "yes."

He acknowledged that AA's mechanics first noticed the potential problem of wire chafing and that AA wrote the Service Bulletin that evolved into the AD on this issue. Sorta like being hoisted by one's own petard. If you're directly involved in writing the fix to the problem in concert with Boeing, you'd better satisfy those requirements exactly.

Still, this isn't a safety of flight issue.
Arpey actually came out to the DFW hangars late last night and was made aware of the Garton statements. I would add that much of the blame game came from local news reporters paraphrasing Garton's comments by saying something to the extent of; "per Garton the mechanics are to blame for this mess." The "blame" word was also used for the promo to the local news. I can see from reading the transcript where the "latitude" word to the average person or reporter for this matter might confuse the normal latitude in which we work with, and the blame for this problem.
 
Arpey actually came out to the DFW hangars late last night and was made aware of the Garton statements. I would add that much of the blame game came from local news reporters paraphrasing Garton's comments by saying something to the extent of; "per Garton the mechanics are to blame for this mess." The "blame" word was also used for the promo to the local news. I can see from reading the transcript where the "latitude" word to the average person or reporter for this matter might confuse the normal latitude in which we work with, and the blame for this problem.

Yeah, I read the transcript and then saw the report on WFAA (Ch. 8) and they really didn't match. The reporter got his soundbite by completely extracting Garton's statements out of context.