American Airlines passengers in Denver and across the country scrambled Wednesday to make new travel plans as the carrier continued inspection of grounded MD-80 planes to achieve compliance with federal air safety standards.
American canceled about 460 MD-80 flights Tuesday and more than 1,000 flights Wednesday as it tried to ensure compliance with a 2006 Federal Aviation Administration directive on inspection of wiring bundles in the wheel wells of MD-80s.
At Denver International Airport, 19 of American’s 22 scheduled departures were canceled, along with a similar number of arrivals. Lines to American’s sixth-floor ticket counter snaked to the mezzanine area overlooking the terminal’s north security checkpoint.
American said Wednesday evening that the carrier had canceled more than 900 flights for today.
Throughout the morning Wednesday, passengers hoping to re-book on other carriers waited up to two hours in line to get assistance from American ticket agents.
Wayne and Betty Oblander of Louviers were scheduled on American’s 12:55 p.m. flight to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and a quilting convention near O’Hare.
The Oblanders’ flight was canceled, so they accepted a 5:30 p.m. flight to Chicago’s Midway International on Frontier Airlines instead.
American said it would issue them a voucher for cab fare from Midway to O’Hare, Betty Oblander said, but she feared that meant waiting in another long line at Midway.
“I’m just glad we’re getting there,” she said, noting that many waiting in line were being re-booked on flights today, which would have made the couple late for their convention.
Tom Botsios, another passenger waiting in American’s line at DIA, might have held the record for the number of flights canceled within 18 hours.
Botsios was in Phoenix on Tuesday night when his early-evening American flight to Dallas-Fort Worth was canceled because of the grounding of the MD-80s. The airline put him up in a Phoenix hotel, and he got up a little past 4 a.m. after American re-booked him for 6:35 a.m. flight Wednesday to DFW.
But it, too, was canceled, so American booked him to DIA on Frontier on Wednesday morning, with a scheduled connection on American from Denver to Dallas late in the morning. Then it was canceled.
“I was canceled three times,” Botsios said, stewing in a line that took travelers about two hours to get to American’s counter.
So he left the line and headed to the United Airlines ticket counter, where United agents said they would honor the paper ticket American had issued to get Botsios to Dallas.
United booked him for its 3:25 p.m. flight to DFW.
“Now I’m just trying to find my luggage,” he said.
American had handed it to Frontier and at mid-day, Botsios didn’t know where it was or whether it would accompany him on United.
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
Kelly Yamanouchi: 303-954-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com
