MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Safety: American Airlines cancels 500 flights

The MD-80s had already been grounded two weeks ago

American Airlines expects to cancel more flights on Wednesday after cancelling about 500 on Tuesday.

The cancellations came after American grounded its MD-80 aircraft to conduct extra safety inspections on wiring. It came after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) raised concerns about the wiring inspections that led to planes being grounded two weeks ago. The FAA has been clamping down on safety inspections and several airlines have been forced to ground planes. Southwest, Delta and United have also grounded some of their fleets to carry out inspections. The FAA said that it had checked several American MD-80s and decided that the work carried out two weeks ago did not meet its standards. The airline runs about 2,300 flights a day, more than one third of which use MD-80s, mainly on mid-range flights. The FAA has been tightening up its inspections since admitting that it was too lax with Southwest Airlines last year. The House of Representatives Transportation Committee discovered that there had been missed inspections for fuselage cracks at Southwest. The Senate is holding its latest set of hearings on airline maintenance and inspection on Thursday.