Cathay Pacific’s recent grounding of its Airbus A350 fleet due to engine problems has seen calls for Rolls-Royce to provide further clarification of the issue.
Yesterday, Cathay Pacific carried out maintenance inspections across its entire A350 fleet. This came in the wake of an inflight engine component failure this week. This took place during a scheduled flight from Hong Kong to Zürich on Monday.
The problem reportedly occurred just after departure and resulted in the flight crew making a precautionary return to Hong Kong.
Cathay Identifies 15 Aircraft With Similar Problem
Following the in-flight incident, the airline advised the identification of an engine component failure on its Trent XWB-97 engine. No further detail was given, however subsequent fleet inspections revealed that 15 of Cathay’s 48 strong fleet of Airbus A350s had similar problems.
The subsequent fleet grounding to permit inspections and maintenance actions resulted in almost 70 flights being cancelled by the airline this week.
Rolls-Royce, the manufacturer of the Trent XWB-97 engine, is facing pressure to disclose the specific cause of the issue. The airline characterised the issue as a “first of its kind problem” with respect to the engine problem.
According to local news source Channel News Asia, the 15 aircraft identified by the airline will need to have the problematic engine component replaced. It confirmed that three aircraft had so far gone through the necessary repairs.
According to Rolls-Royce, the necessary component replacement could be conducted with the engine on-wing. In other words, the engine assembly did not have to be removed from the airframe to conduct the necessary rectification work.
Calls For Further Details
While the airline has been working closely with Rolls-Royce to address the problem, industry calls are growing for greater transparency surrounding the engine’s malfunction. Many are calling for a more detailed explanation from the engine manufacturer.
The grounding of Cathay Pacific’s A350 fleet caused significant disruption to the airline’s operations and impacted thousands of passengers. The Trent XWB-97 engine at the centre of the issue is the powerplant for the widebody Airbus A350-1000 variant.
Major world airlines which similarly operate the A350-1000 type include Qatar Airways, Etihad Airways, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
Japan Airlines, which operates five near new A350-1000 aircraft has similarly called for more information from the engine manufacturer. It has not suspended its A350 flight operations as yet.
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