PSA Airlines, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines which operates regional flights on behalf of the Dallas Fort Worth-based airline has confirmed that it has grounded the bulk of its fleet to “complete a standard inspection”. The temporary grounding has resulted in at least 122 flight cancellations and American Airlines is scrambling to rebook affected passengers onto alternative services.
An internal company email which has been obtained by CNN, however, says the airline has been “temporarily grounded by the FAA”. The Federal Aviation Administration has not yet confirmed whether it was involved in the decision to ground PSA Airlines but American Airlines confirmed that inspections were being carried out on the nose gear door of affected aircraft.
Sources claim the inspections are related to safety violations that have been uncovered by FAA inspectors, although this has not been confirmed. The airline, which is branded as American Eagle, operates around 130 aircraft – all of which are CRJ-700 and CRJ-900 jets.
In a statement posted to its Twitter account, PSA Airlines said: “Most of our aircraft have temporarily been removed from service to complete a standard inspection. We’re working to resolve the issue and sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for American Airlines said the grounding was made “out of an abundance of caution”.
“PSA Airlines has temporarily removed most of its aircraft from service in order to complete a necessary, standard inspection on the nose gear door. We are working with PSA and the FAA to immediately address the issue,” a statement explained.
Before the pandemic, PSA Airlines operated around 12 per cent of American’s daily flight schedule, or around 800 flights per day. On June 19, 2018, PSA cancelled every single scheduled flight due to a computer malfunction. The IT woes took several days to be fully rectified.
