Traveling by air? Good luck getting there

Airline passengers, whose plans already have been disrupted by thousands of canceled flights recently, may face continued chaos in coming weeks as the government and airlines expand scrutiny of planes.

Recent groundings at airlines such as American, Alaska, Delta and Southwest resulted from a broader round of inspections, ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), to determine whether airlines have complied with past directives to check airplane structures, wires, electronics and other components.

A second wave of audits began March 30 and will continue through June 30. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said further groundings are possible. "We don't know," she said. "We find what we find."

That will do little to reassure travelers, who face difficulties switching to other flights because planes generally are flying full on popular routes.

The FAA turned up new problems Monday, when nine MD-80 jets operated by American failed a check, prompting the agency to ground 300 planes. American canceled more than 1,000 flights Wednesday, on top of 430 Tuesday, while its MD-80 fleet was inspected. American expects 900 cancellations today, and the problem could spill over to Friday.

Airports hit hardest by the canceled flights were Dallas-Fort Worth International, Chicago's O'Hare International and New York's LaGuardia International. At Seattle-Tacoma International — where only 5 percent of passengers take American flights — the MD-80 inspections resulted in only seven American cancellations, airport officials said.

"American is not one of the big players here ... ," Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper said. "We haven't really seen a big impact here."

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines, which operates 35 percent of Sea-Tac flights, canceled about 19 flights nationwide, Cooper said. Of those, 11 Sea-Tac flights — five departures and six incoming — were canceled. Most passengers were put on other flights, Cooper said.

Yoree Koh, 25, arrived at LaGuardia on Wednesday to find her American flight to Chicago had been canceled, meaning she will miss an orientation session at Northwestern University. "It basically ruined my week," she said.

Koh said she was advised to return at 6 a.m. today to join the standby list for a 12:40 p.m. flight. "I'm not holding my breath," Koh said.

The FAA and airlines are responding, in part, to heightened scrutiny by Congress, led by Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, who is a longtime activist on aviation safety.

Congress' stance toward the industry has shifted from benevolence after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to a more combative approach after a string of passenger disruptions and revelations about lax oversight.

Oberstar said Wednesday that his criticism was "an effort to get them back on course, to being the gold standard in the world for aviation safety oversight and maintenance oversight, and to re-establish a safety mind-set and culture with the agency, instead of this coddling of the industry."

There has not been a crash of a big jet in the United States since an American Airlines plane broke up in flight over New York in November 2001 — a point repeatedly made by federal administrators and airline executives as proof that the air system is safe.

That attitude could be dangerous, Oberstar said. "Time passes, and 'Oh, we haven't had an accident, and now we can be cozy and play patty-cake with the airlines,' " he said, describing the FAA's attitude. "As soon as you do that, you lose the enforcement mind-set, and you lose the sense of the margin of safety."

Today, a Senate aviation subcommittee will meet to raise safety concerns, one week after a hearing by a House subcommittee into the failure by Southwest to stop flying 40 planes that had failed FAA inspections. The agency has recommended a $10.4 million fine against Southwest.

The prospect of such fines, and of damage to public confidence, are motivations behind the airlines' widespread flight cancellations, industry experts said Wednesday.

"The overreaction is unreal," said a senior executive at one major airline, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The congressional scrutiny comes at a crucial point for the FAA's acting administrator, Robert Sturgell, whose confirmation by the Senate is in doubt.

The airlines' treatment is a sharp contrast to the assistance that was swiftly offered by Congress in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Congress granted $5 billion in immediate cash assistance and $10 billion in federally backed loans, which were overseen by the Air Transportation Stabilization Board. Six major airlines sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and have since reorganized, eliminating tens of thousands of jobs and cutting hundreds of flights.

Still, former FAA officials say there has long been concern over the warm relationship between agency inspectors and the airlines they investigate.

The problem is compounded by the FAA's tight budget.

Nick Lacey, former director of flight standards at the FAA and now chief operating officer of an aviation consulting firm in Arlington, Va., said he was not surprised to see Congress step up its scrutiny of airlines in an atmosphere of rising passenger ire.

Seattle Times transportation reporter Mike Lindblom contributed to this report.