FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — American Airlines canceled another 296 flights Friday as repairs continued on planes grounded by hail damage in Texas, but it hoped to be nearly back to normal operations Saturday.
Spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said the cancellations Friday affected flights in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, American's biggest hub.
Since Tuesday's storms, American and its American Eagle affiliate have canceled about 1,900 flights. Huguely said they expected only 27 cancellations Saturday.
Of the original 108 planes hit by hail, 55 were still out of service. They are one-aisle planes, mostly MD-80s, that American uses for flights within the United States and to nearby international destinations such as Mexico. Huguely said the airline was finding planes to operate all international flights, and all the remaining cancelations were domestic trips. Some international flights were canceled in the storms' immediate aftermath.
Huguely said American's two-aisle or widebody planes used on longer international flights were either already in the air or parked in hangars when DFW was hit by storms that also spawned about a dozen tornadoes in north Texas.
The airline has not estimated the financial damage from the storm and canceled flights. Frontier Airlines lost $10 million last year after hail damaged 22 planes in Denver, and it suffered far fewer canceled flights than American.
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