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American Morning

Emery Airlines Shuts Down Operations

Aired August 13, 2001 - 09:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: We want to tell you more about a story that we hinted at earlier, with Emery Airlines shutting down operations.

Our Patty Davis is here to tell us more what that means -- and maybe to your business as well -- Patty, good morning.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

Emery, the cargo airline, has just announced that it has ceased operations under an interim agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration. They say that affects about 30 of its aircraft, specifically at Emery Worldwide Airlines.

Now, Aviation sources tell CNN that the FAA had planned to tell Emery that they had until noon today to shut down, cease operations, or the FAA would pull its certification -- at issue: Emery's maintenance practices. Sources say, specifically, FAA inspections over the past year and a half have turned up evidence that Emery was operating aircraft out of compliance with federal regulations, doing inadequate repairs, unapproved installation of parts, as well as not following procedures in the manuals that they have.

Now, the FAA would only say that it has had Emery under surveillance, heightened surveillance, heightened inspections for about the past year and a half -- January 2000, to be specific.

Now, the cargo airline did have a crash in February last year near the Sacramento Airport. Three crewmen were killed in that. It has been perhaps linked to those maintenance practices. The last shutdown of a major airline, now, was ValuJet in 1996 after it crashed into the swamps in Florida -- now, the headline here being that Emery cargo airlines has said that it is shutting down its operations in an interim agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Patty, a basic business question here: What if you have packages that you have sent on Emery?

DAVIS: Well, Emery says that, in fact, it will be running a full schedule tonight. It says that one of the operations, one of the airlines that it contracts out to is in fact its own: Emery Worldwide Airlines -- only about 30 aircraft.

But it has a contract with other airlines to pick up all of that business. So they're saying that in fact no business will be interrupted because of this shutdown -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Patty Davis in Washington -- Patty, thank you.

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