AA canceled flights

Maybe back in the day when we had a less litigious society all-around.

This. I don't know why anyone in this culture expects our leaders and business execs to take responsibility for their actions when the entire basis of our legal system is denying responsibility. Hell, I've got at least three cards in my wallet instructing me 'DO NOT ADMIT FAULT' if I have some sort of accident.
 
Does anyone think AA will cease to be a company soon? Just curious, reading all the stuff I have found on here and elsewhere just doesn't look good. But also I am no industry expert by any means.
 
You are looking at this backwards. Prior to the pilots just doing their jobs, they would intentionally violate FARs and NOT write stuff up in order to NOT inconvenience passengers and to AVOID flight cancellations.

Was it a good thing and did it keep the airline (mostly) running on time?

Yep.

Was it willfully negligent and illegal?

Yep.

I think the issue is not that the pilots are writing up mx items, rather, it is that they are waiting until THE LAST MINUTE to do it. I.E. writing up an item just prior to door close. Whereas before said item would have been written up well before boarding commenced. This can easily be done by doing one's walk around as the pax are almost boarding and - oh hey, look there is a chip in the landing light lens...better call mx! Versus doing the walk before the pax board and having mx fix said lens while the pax are boarding.
 
You are assuming that the FO gets to the plane and does a walk around before the passengers are on board.

Figure a 50 minute turn with a plane swap, which from every time I've ridden on AA seems to be the norm. The policy over there is that the crew stays and says goodbye to the passengers so even if the block in on time, they aren't getting off the plane until 15 or 20 minutes later. Their 50 minute turn is now down to 30 minutes. I assume you've wandered through DFW at some point so you know that getting between terminals (which also seemed the norm for crew's plane swaps) can take 15 to 20 minutes as well. By the time they actually get to their next plane they could be down to D-15. Figure another 5 minutes to get on bored and stow your bags, 5 minutes to go outside and do the walk around and find the burned out light, you magically are calling MX to the plane at D-5.
 
I think the issue is not that the pilots are writing up mx items, rather, it is that they are waiting until THE LAST MINUTE to do it. I.E. writing up an item just prior to door close. Whereas before said item would have been written up well before boarding commenced. This can easily be done by doing one's walk around as the pax are almost boarding and - oh hey, look there is a chip in the landing light lens...better call mx! Versus doing the walk before the pax board and having mx fix said lens while the pax are boarding.

I'd like to agree with you, but it's hard to not write something up "at the last minute" when you only have a 17 minute turn. Or if you're Southwest, 25 minutes. Even if you have a 45 minute turn, that doesn't leave a whole lot of time between everyone-off and start-of-boarding. 10, 15 minutes maybe? A lot of things can be fixed/swapped in that amount of time, but a lot of things can't be, either.

To me, the issue comes down to the definition of airworthiness. Since the FAA hasn't been kind enough to grace us with a useful definition, it comes down to personal interpretation. And my personal interpretation of the regulations and case law is this: If anything on the aircraft isn't meeting manufacturer design specifications, and it can't be deferred via an MEL, CDL, or NEF, then the aircraft is unairworthy. Does that mean I won't fly a plane with a slightly torn seat back pocket in 4C? Of course not. But, as BobDDuck put it,

Was it willfully negligent and illegal?

Yep.

So if the FAA decides to suspend my ticket because of said torn seat pocket, well, that was my call. If AMR's pilots aren't willing to make that same decision, who am I or anyone else to tell them otherwise?
 
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