Old Planes + Maintenance Audit Delays

By DAN CATERINICCHIA – 20 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rigorous airline maintenance audits recently ordered by federal regulators are likely to yield the most headaches for travelers flying Northwest, American and United airlines.

Those carriers have the oldest fleets, on average. The older the jet, the more likely it requires time-consuming, and potentially flight-grounding, government-ordered inspections, analysts and regulators agree.

The nation's largest carrier canceled another 200 flights Saturday morning before returning all of its 300 grounded jets to service, bringing the total number of cancellations last week to nearly 3,300. The average age of American's MD-80s average 18 years old, Wagner said.

To be fair, flying on U.S. airlines has never been safer. The last U.S. crash of a jumbo jet was in November 2001, when an American Airlines flight plummeted into a New York City neighborhood, killing 265 people.

"We don't have old planes in the air," said Harlan Platt, a finance professor at Northeastern University in Boston who follows corporate turnarounds. The age of plane refers to the fuselage, while most of the parts are replaced every three to seven years, he added.

To read this entire article, please visit: http://www.paradigmshiftpr.com/media/placements/oldplanes.htm