Thread: All Aero California Flights Suspended Over Safety Concerns

http://www.nbc4.tv/news/8436825/detail.html

The title from American Patrol's posting of this article is more appropriate - Los Angeles
Cheesy Mexican airline stiffs, strands Americans :P

All Aero California Flights Suspended Over Safety Concerns
POSTED: 8:06 am PDT April 3, 2006
UPDATED: 10:44 am PDT April 3, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- Mexican aviation officials have suspended operations at Aerocalifornia after determining that the low-cost carrier failed to meet safety standards.

Before news was released about safety concerns, ticket agents told some passengers left stranded over the weekend that the airline had gone bankrupt. But the Civil Aviation Department announced the closure in a news release late Sunday, saying the agency "has determined that this airline no longer guarantees that operations meet safety standards."

The airline offered flights to 22 Mexican cities and Los Angeles.

Department and airline spokesmen were not immediately available for comment.

A woman answering the telephone at an Aerocalifornia office in La Paz, where the airline is based, referred a caller to a different office, where no one answered the telephone.

At a sales office in Mexico City, several frustrated customers were lining up to look for ways to get to their destinations after their flights were canceled.

"It was a big surprise. They didn't call or anything to advise me that it was canceled," said Enrique Zuniga, a 58-year-old education writer who had been booked on a 2,400-peso ($220) flight Monday from Mexico City to his home city of Chihuahua.

"I hope they have the good will to compensate me somehow."

The suspension follows several inspections by federal authorities beginning more than a year ago, when the airline was instructed to make a series of changes to improve operations.

One of the inspections showed that the airline had a third of its fleet grounded and was taking parts from decommissioned airplanes to keep others operating, the department said.

The federal agency reportedly has given the airline an unspecified amount of time to correct problems in order to restart operations.

Aerocalifornia was one of several low-cost airlines to emerge in recent years, offering passengers cheaper alternatives to the country's dominant Aeromexico and Mexicana carriers.

"We hope the airline will be able to resolve the problems as soon as possible and will be able to begin operating again -- but under the highest security standards," President Vicente Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Monday.

We hope the airline will be able to resolve the problems as soon as possible and will be able to begin operating again -- but under the highest security standards," President Vicente Fox's spokesman, Ruben Aguilar, said Monday.

Not security, you dumbass, safety!

Your planes apparently are as well maintained as those famous Mexican buses that routinely drive off of cliffs because they don't have working brakes.