[Potakas]

Just to mention that the orders are for Air China which is owned by China National Aviation Holdings Company (CNAH) .CNAC is currently in talks with China Eastern Airlines.

Back on topic,

The SQ317 is listed at Heathrow’s airport webpage on the status GATE CLOSED.

Regards,

Potakas

[JohnPhelanAustralia]

QF really had no choice but to ground the A380 fleet. It’s not just the SIN incident; QF has had ongoing problems with the A380 engines since the day the first aircraft arrived.

I know this first-hand, as I was on VH-OQA (the same plane as yesterday’s incident) at LAX last year when we sat onboard, on the ramp, for six hours while they tried to fix a problem with the number 2 engine. Eventually we were deplaned and another A380 was flown in to take us out the following day. The original aircraft returned to Australia – and then the very same thing happened on its next flight to LAX.

There have been very frequent cases of QF A380s going out of service, though only a few of them have gained media attention (thankfully). However, QF had had a string of technical problems over the past two years – most of them on Airbus aircraft – so the company could not approach yesterday’s incident as though it was a ‘one off’ – from the public perspective, it’s just the latest tech issue in a fairly long list. In those circumstances, Alan Joyce’s primary responsibility had to be to reassure the travelling public that they would be safe – which, for the time being, means grounding the A380s until they work out what happened.

As an aside, after my unhappy technical experience with the A380 at LAX, and being aware of many of the other engine issues QF has had with the A380, I for one have chosen NOT to fly on the A380 since the middle of last year, because – in my opinion – the aircraft and its engines are not reliable and I don’t want to have my plans delayed because of engine issues. Yes, the A380 is a lovely aircraft to fly in if/when you actually get into the air, but give me the reliability of a 747-400 any day!

[Binman62]

Given that SQ have in conjunction with the Rolls Royce, checked all their aircraft and found no fault, is the consensus of opinion still that QF made the right decision?
Qantas now claim a design fault or material defect but surely if that were true it would be affecting all A380 with RR engines. As it is SQ317 departed last night from LHR as did SQ321 in the early hours following checks by SQ and RR. (IMHO) This was the right and proper course of action and that the actions of Qantas continue to look premature and over the top.

[robsmith100]

I am surprised there has been no word from other A380 users such as Emirates, Air France or Lufthansa? Has anyone else had any news from other carriers about grounding this model?

[Deleted User]

Binman – it depends on your definintion of “grounding”.

SQ appeared to have grounded their fleet, checked the engines and given them the all clear and they are now apparently flying again. They have made a statement saying all is in order with their 380’s what more can they do.

QF have on the other hand said that there is a design fault. I presume that they cant fly their 380’s until they can say design fault rectified.

Perhaps there is an aircraft engineer among us who can pass chapter and verse – I presume that this is beyong the knowloedge of Vintagekrug, but who knows…………………………………..

[Travel-guru]

Rob, Emirates & Air France do have trent engines fitted. They use GE

[Travel-guru]

Sorry, don’t have Trent engines

[Age_of_Reason]

We are not going to hear the full story on these threads, because anyone who really knows the contractual and design issues should not be commenting here. But the point of this thread to me is the issue of customer choice. To which airline do I give my business?

Singapore has to fight for every ticket, having a small local demand base and a strategic location but with declining value due to LR aircraft not requiring the fuelstop. S’pore must therefore keep flying, or lose loyalty and habitual rebooking. It must remain competitive and needs the A380 to give volume and reduce input costs.

QANTAS has a secure longhaul market from domestic and visitor travel. The A380 is one of several products which can help its cost base, but in the end it can pass costs on. It would take a major loss-of-life disaster to dent the brand loyalty of its aussie (and many pommie) customers

So S’pore must trust the system, and keep risk insurable. QANTAS can accuse ‘design fault’ thus triggering an obligation to disprove, or replace as-new, or extract from the contract. The possibility of an offer from GE to substitute the Trents is a valuable lever for QANTAS to pull.

[Binman62]

CMBurchhardt….. I would agree that it is all about the definition and by extension all about perception. The CEO of Qantas announced that all A380 were grounded and I think it is now clear that he did so without the backing and support of Airbus or Rolls Royce. SQ took a more pragmatic view and followed the advice of the engine manufacturers delaying flights until it was clear all was safe.
Qantas having now dug themselves into a PR hole and as you say cannot possibly fly this aircraft until they state what the design fault is, why it affects only their aircraft and how it will be fixed.
Personally I think the deafening silence from Airbus and Rolls Royce on the matter is very telling and that the Qantas CEO has turned a drama into a crisis.
I would also reapeat that the 777 BA38 accident was a far more serious issue ( it was afterall an accident not an incident) than the engine fault on the A380 and was also the first major incident on that aicraft type ( though I may be wrong) yet BA continued to fly the fleet.
Two very different responses and as far as maintaining confidence among the travelling public and I know which I prefer.

[Deleted User]

Binman

I would agree that if this happened to any other aircraft, i.e. 747, etc, I doubt whether Qantas or any other airline would have “grounded” the fleet. Nothing was grounded after the UPS crash in Dubai last month.

The overiding issues here are:

Airbus 380 – the worlds largest people carrier

400 + souls on board

Brand new state of the art aircraft

Its still very much the “media” aircraft.

Apparently it attracts a big following at various airports, with aircraft spotters constantly waiting to see.

G-d forbid a 1000 times that something similar happens when the 787 enters service but I think any other airline would act in the same way and for something far less serious.

I would currently think twice aboout flying the 380, until the mgf and RR make a public comment and Qantas provide further data.

On the positive side, well done to the pilots – once again these guys are the unsung heroes. The calming voice of the pilot over the intercom against the picture of him walking through the terminal presumably after the event – are very contrasting.

[Age_of_Reason]

Still spurious logic based on selected ‘facts’ being bandied about in some inexplicable attempt to denigrate the QANTAS CEO.

The BA 777 incident, although it was a crash and not a ‘near-miss’, was much less serious in that the aircraft was able to land, and all that was lost was the luggage (it was BA after all). The culprit is fuel quality or delivery at low flows and temperatures. The Risk Assessment would conclude that the aircraft is not prone to falling out of the sky with total casualties.

The A380 engine failure incident caused damage to the structure and fabric of the aircraft and could conceivably escalate to a total loss without gliding capability. The risk (ie probability) may be similar, but the consequence (descent uncontrolled from cruise altitude) is much worse.

It’s the inverse of the car v plane assessment. Cars are driven by amateurs with minimal competence assessment and optional maintenance regimes, whereas planes are flown by trained/retrained professionals and maintained to strict tolerance and quality assured programs supervised by the manufacturers. The result is that, broadly, commercial air travel is safe and road transport is hazardous.

So if you want to be safe, take the train to a QANTAS flight. If you crave risk, drive to the airport and fly with a barely solvent airline.

[MartynSinclair]

There seems to be an underlying point you making regarding whether teh CEO of Qantas needs to be canned for making this decision. I really dont think that logic provides the entire route to the answer.

Lets take Bransons space venture. This is presumably being tested to safety margins beyond that which anything flying, apart from the Shuttle has been tested to. If you use the logic principle, then it must be as safe as houses. If an engine blew on that after take off, rest assured it wouldnt take a brain surgeon to understand why the entire fleet (on the basis that there will be more than 1 unit flying) would be grounded.

Would you consider the space craft to be safe, logic says yes, but there is still a risk.

I will gladly offer my mother in law as the test passenger!

In the meantime, I hope that there is a safe conclusion to the 380 situation.

[JohnPhelanAustralia]

Well said, Age_of_Reason.

Binman62, with respect, I think your comments are understandable if this incident was taken in isolation, but I can only presume you are not based in Australia. For more than two years, QF have been dealing with a fear campaign, conducted by some elements of the media in Australia and the engineers union, constantly squawking that it’s not safe to fly on QF.

Apart from the incidents that have been mentioned on this site, it has become quite common to read stories in our Australian newspapers about “Qantas engine turmoil delays flight by three hours” – and yes, I am serious, the media here has been running ‘shock, horror’ stories about any QF flight that experiences a tech delay of more than a couple of hours, always with a comment about QF’s ‘decline in safety standards’. The unfairness here is that if Virgin, United, SQ or anyone else have similar tech delays, there is no media reporting of this at all – it only appears if it is QF, largely because the engineers union doesn’t notify the media about issues affecting other airlines!

QF has even taken to commissioning market research over the past few years to ascertain if people believe the airline is unsafe – and at one point a bit over a year ago, the majority of respondents agreed that “QF is no longer safe”. So that is the domestic climate in Australia that QF faced when this week’s incident occurred.

Given that background – and indeed, yesterday, up bobbed the bloody engineers union AGAIN to say that this incident reflected QF’s declining safety standards – there is absolutely no doubt that Alan Joyce’s call was the correct one. Here’s the union line:

http://www.couriermail.com.au/travel/news/qantas-flight-32-lands-safely-at-changi-airport-in-singapore/story-e6freqwo-1225947850097

I often don’t agree with Joyce’s decisions on things, but on this one, he was absolutely correct from a PR and commercial perspective. The first priority had to be to tell the Australian domestic market – and the Australian media – that QF would not fly the A380 while there was doubt as to its safety (even if many consider the doubt to be unreasonable). The secondary message in that was that despite the huge amount of money that it would cost QF in hotels and chartering aircraft (from BA), QF puts safety ahead of financial considerations – totally countering the constant bleating of the engineers union that Qantas has been doing things on the cheap and putting dollars ahead of safety.

Once the remaining QF A380s have been inspected and if no problems are found, then I expect they will resume flying – probably within 48 hours.

As I stated in an earlier post, given that I have previously been the victim of the dodgy reliability of those Trent engines on the A380, I will continue to choose my flights to deliberately avoid the A380. Fortunately, QF still has plenty of flights to the US on 747-400 aircraft – and I always prefer to fly BA to/from the UK, because of the superior nature of the Club World configuration.

[Binman62]

MartynSinclair…No, I have no view on whether the CEO should be canned, that is a matter for Qantas.
JohnPhelanAustralia. I think the point is that he was not talking to a Australian domestic audience ( the world does not end at botany bay) but to a global audience and he should have been aware of that before making such a statement. By acting as he did he may have enjoyed some Domestic success including a victory over the TU. But the actions gave ammunition to the Americans to knock a great European aircraft powered by a state of the art engine. (There was a documentary recently here in the UK showing how it is built, by whom and the testing regime employed.)
Now we hear that a 747 has been involved in another scare and again at SIN but I bet he does not ground this fleet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11702365

[MartynSinclair]

The Amricans would be on very dodgy ground considering the number of RR engines that are flying within US airspace.

I understand your point, but I think you can see that this is more about PR and spin than safety. The fact that the 380 had sufficient time to dump fuel and pax walked down steps and did not slide down chutes shows the positive points, but PR and spin have taken over.

After the latest events (747 back to SIN) there should be some very good ticket prices from Qantas in a few weeks time.

Why are there so many Irish CEO’s of airlines, must be something in the water!!!!!!!

[Author]

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