FAA Denies AMR, AirTran Cockpit Door Extensions For A300s, DC-9s By Steve Lott and Lori Ranson American and AirTran -- both working aggressively to keep a tight lid on costs and retain customers -- were dealt a blow after FAA denied the airlines' requests to extend and waive the April 9 deadline to install reinforced cockpit doors across their whole fleets. Following FAA's strongly worded denial of AA's request, an airline spokesman told The DAILY it's possible that as many as five Airbus A300-600s won't be retrofitted by the April 9 deadline. That will mean grounding those planes until they have the new doors, and the airline would have to make "service adjustments." American's A300-600s primarily fly from the U.S. East Coast to the Caribbean and Latin America. AA petitioned FAA in December and stressed that taking the aircraft out of service would result in "serious revenue loss," and would "have a severe impact on the thousands of customers," who have already booked on future flights. The carrier wanted to extend the compliance date for the remaining aircraft from April 9 deadline to July 9, and claimed Airbus is to blame for the delay in its compliance time. The carrier said Airbus "consistently demonstrated their inability to deliver engineering support and required kits," and the deadline to ship parts for additional venting and reinforcement slipped from Feb. 2-8 to Feb. 9-15. Only some of the airline's 34 A300s have been modified, and the airline said it "will continue to press Airbus for the kits." As many as three A300s could be modified at once, AA said, if "Airbus kit deliveries permit." American's original estimate of eight days to install the kits slipped to 15 after installing a prototype kit on the A300B4-605R. The airline's Tulsa maintenance base is handling the modifications. An Airbus spokeswoman acknowledged there was a "slight delay" in creating and shipping the A300 kits to the airline. However, she said AA has had some kits since December. Airbus focused first on doors for the A320, A330s and A340s before it started working on the A300 kits. AA said the rest of its largely Boeing fleet will be meet the deadline. FAA reiterated on several occasions that it would not consider exemptions, and didn't waiver on AA's request. "This date has been known for a year and one-half, and security considerations overshadow the burden on individual operators who have reasons to request and exemption," the agency said. FAA noted that the delays could be beyond American's control, but the carrier's reasoning wasn't strong enough to warrant an exemption. Going back to last August, top FAA officials met with airline and manufacturer representatives to emphasize the agency's commitment to the April 9 deadline (DAILY, Aug. 27). The FAA urged industry to do whatever it needed to meet that timeframe. In September, former acting Administrator Monte Belger declared that U.S. airlines will meet the deadline and stressed the new designs will meet all the requirements laid out in the rule (DAILY, Sept. 6). At the same time it denied American's request, FAA also turned down AirTran, which asked for an exemption for its DC-9 fleet, which it plans to retire by October. In its December request, AirTran said there was "significant cost associated" with retrofitting the DC-9 door with "little or none usable" on future 717 deliveries. The airline said at the time said that because many, if not all, of the DC-9s were going to be scrapped after retirement, "the cost for this modification will not be recouped." FAA's denial forces AirTran to swallow the costs of installing the doors, and the airline plans to quickly ramp up a modification line in Orlando to start equipping its DC-9s, using the same vendor that is retrofitting the airline's 717s. Even though the cost is "rather expensive," a spokesman said AirTran will absorb it because it is more important to have the planes flying and generating revenue. Roger EWROPS