AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL AIRLINE Qantas continues to keep its fleet of Airbus A380 planes grounded as investigations into last week’s mid-air engine failure continue.
On Thursday, a Qantas flight was forced to make an emergency landing at Singapore airport after one of its engines failed and broke apart shortly after take-off. On Friday, a 747 was forced to land after it too suffered engine failure.
The airline immediately grounded its six A380 jets, and Reuters reports today that the company has extended the time it expects to keep those planes on the ground.
Qantas said it found oil leaks in three of its grounded A380 planes. The engines are produced by Rolls-Royce, and Thursday’s incident has seen over £1bn knocked from the value of the firm, according to the Telegraph.
Alan Jones, CEO of Qantas, said: “These engines are not performing to the parameters you would expect”, the Wall Street Journal reports. Jones also said his airline uses a different version of the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine than Singapore Airlines and Lufthansa.
He also said Qantas was leasing aircraft from British Airways to meet its flight schedule while the A380s are grounded. He said it was too early to “put a number on the total cost” of the incident.
Qantas continued with plans to mark its 90th anniversary despite the engine safety fears, and actor John Travolta put in appearance at a special reception for the airline, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Travolta, a Qantas ambassador, appeared dressed as a Qantas pilot.
[caption id="attachment_43999" align="alignnone" width="511" caption="John Travolta waves as he disembarks from a Qantas 707 plane in Sydney this weekend. (Rick Rycroft/AP/Press Association Images)"]
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