Spirit Airlines was forced to cancel a number of flights so it could carry out inspections on 25 aircraft from its fleet.
According to CNN, the American airline was forced to abandon dozens of scheduled flights on October 20, 2023, and October 21, 2023.
The aviation tracking website FlightAware.com, reported on October 20, 2023, that 98 of Spirit Airlines flights had been cancelled and on October 21, 2023, a further 81 flights had been pulled.
FlightAware.com also signaled that most of the cancelled flights involved Airbus A319 aircraft.
“We’ve cancelled a portion of our scheduled flights to perform a necessary inspection of a small section of 25 of our aircraft. The impact on our network is expected to last several days as we complete the inspections and work to return to normal operations,” Spirit Airlines said in a statement.
The low-cost carrier added that the move had been taken out of an “abundance of caution” and apologized to its passengers that were affected.
Although Spirit Airlines did not specifically share the reason for the inspection of its aircraft, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) later shed some light on the issue.
According to the Press Association, a document from the FAA said the inspections were necessary to “look for signs of cracking around fasteners that attach pressure panels to beams on the planes”.
The document added that without checks the cracks could lead to reduced structural integrity and “possible rapid decompression of the airplane”.
The type of checks Spirit Airlines carried out are required by all airlines in Europe and the United States.
