UPDATE: American Airlines to Operate More Than Half of Its MD80 Schedule on Friday

FORT WORTH, Texas, April 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Airlines will operate about 50 percent of its MD80 schedule Friday morning and that is expected to rise to 60 percent by 4 p.m. Central. There were 595 MD80 flight cancellations in place on Friday.

American had 226 of its 300 MD80s in service early Friday morning. The airline continues efforts to re-accommodate customers affected by this week's activity as its maintenance work force continued the safety inspections.

These inspections were conducted to ensure compliance with a Federal Aviation Administration directive related to the bundling of wires in the wheel well of the MD80 aircraft. American Airlines apologizes for any inconvenience this activity has created for our customers.

On Thursday, American Airlines canceled over 930 flights related to the MD80 inspections. That follows the cancellation of 1,094 flights on Wednesday and 460 canceled flights on Tuesday.

Customers who were scheduled on a flight that was canceled may request a full refund or apply the value of their ticket toward future travel on American Airlines. Additionally, customers scheduled to travel on any MD80 flight April 8-13, even if their flight has not been canceled, may rebook without a change fee to any AA flight with availability in the same cabin as long as their travel begins by April 17.

Customers who were inconvenienced with overnight stays should go to AA.com where a link has been established to request information about compensation. Customers also are encouraged to continue to check AA.com or to contact their travel agents for flight status information.

   Current AMR Corp. (NYSE: AMR) releases can be accessed on the Internet.
                       The address is http://www.aa.com