No, junior, the airlines and the FAA inspectors are. People are upset because these inspections should have been completed during the normal course of performing maintenance which is SCHEDULED to eliminate cancelled flights. People are upset that the airlies:

A) Didn’t perform routine inspections and corrections properly

B) They have paid money in advance and have now had all sorts of plans cancelled BECAUSE THE AIRLINE SCREWED UP

So, the airlines at some point DIDN’T care, that’s why the fleet is now grounded, because they tried to get away with something that cleary, as you can see wasn’t allowed.

Get it now?

I think you have a fair point, but at the same time, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have both been in trouble recently because they’ve been breaking the regulations set up by the FAA. Because the MD-80’s are some of the most reliable and cost effective aircraft, they have put trust in these birds for years. They simply weaseled their way around the FAA to cut costs. Now they’ve got the FAA and medias attention. There are going to have to be changes to allow the airlines to be more cost efficient so they can continue their valued service, but dodging these mechanical inspections is the wrong path.

As i have said in one question re: cancellation: it is better to cancel 1 flight than to have an effect of creeping delays on all flight (airline reliability will be compromise).
If you’re referring to the FAA grounding all fleet, as the guy said there is a schedule maintenance of the aircraft but as we saw it was not being followed, a very important FAA AD which is the lap joint inspection. If one miss this out with his ***** eye a second inspection using High Frequency Eddy Current would show all propagation that would lead to future cracks and Aloha Air have shown how a plane is ripped. Surely no one wants a repetition if it can be avoided.

The grounding of airplanes is nothing more than the FAA flexing its muscle after being embarrassed last week. This is all about having wire harness ties @ 1 inch spacing instead of the 1.5 or 2 inch spacing the FAA found on some MD-80’s. If that is going to bring down an aircraft. Give me a break. Political Correctness at it’s best.

But airlines already follow strict maintenance schedules. For a company to ground planes means that someone didn’t do the job they are being paid to do, and people are now delayed because of it.

Well, it will be interesting to see how it comes out. What I’m actually expecting is after grounding all these birds and inspecting them that there may not be a single bird that needs to be rewired. As to answers… they are inspected on a progressive basis by A&P mechanics continuously already and are kept in good order so you needn’t be concerned.