In the words of Ricky Ricardo, the CEO of AMR Corp. has "some 'splainin' to do." Whether you believe the parent of American Airlines is merely the victim of a reactionary FAA or not, the fact of the matter is that management had 18 months to comply with the FAA's request regarding the wiring on the MD-80s and failed to act.
Yes, the planes have been flying safely for years, and yes, the FAA is likely overreacting to criticism from Congress after it was made to look inept in the Southwest Airlines debacle a few weeks back. Nevertheless, the single most important task of any airline CEO is public safety. Failing to address a potential safety risk merely because you didn't think you would get caught is a miserable excuse.
Maybe AMR's management simply thought the cost of fixing the problem would be too high -- especially since the FAA really hadn't checked that carefully in the past. With jet fuel costs skyrocketing and the economy slumping, spending more money on maintenance that didn't seem necessary had to be a tough pill to swallow. So AMR chose not to take its medicine in small manageable doses over the past 18 months in hopes that the problem would just go unnoticed.
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