Qantas has a crisis of perception that became worse overnight when a faulty fuel valve caused one of its aged Rolls-Royce-powered Boeing 747-400s to make a precautionary landing in Fiji yesterday, stranding 375 passengers until this afternoon, when a replacement jet picks them up.
The pilots noticed that the valve, feeding the No.4 engine, had stopped, and decided that the non-stop flight across the Pacific to Los Angeles, and on to New York, would also stop as soon as possible, and landed it at Nadi, which was conveniently close to their position.
This was the second Rolls-Royce engine failure on a Qantas 747 this month, the other occurring before another attempted non-stop service to Los Angeles on January 16 when to quote the intercom message from the cockpit to the cabin on the taxiway to the runway “the engine has cooked itself”.
Qantas had six serious incidents involving this engine type on its 747s last year, including a potentially very serious uncontained engine failure after take off from San Francisco for Sydney last August, and which is also the subject of a continuing ATSB investigation.
These 747 engine incidents were shaded by the massive uncontained failure of a Rolls-Royce engine on an Airbus A380 operating QF32 from Singapore to Sydney on November 4, which caused a grave in-flight crisis and resulted in the airline taking preventative legal action against the engine maker in lieu of a damages claim estimated to be close to $200 million.
The perceptions that Qantas has become unsafe have often been inflamed by sensational reporting of minor incidents. Last night’s problem was routine but nevertheless troubling, since the exposure of a flight to mechanical problems on a 13-hour 25-minute crossing of the Pacific makes all faults additionally important.
If recent interviews given by Qantas CEO Alan Joyce about his plans to invest more money in the brand are any guide, the airline has also lost its way in dealing with the nasty realities embedded in the perceptions it is trying to counter with spin, gloss and it seems, luck.
Qantas has been stranded with aged jets it never intended to keep this long because of the delays to deliveries of its flagship Airbus A380, and to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which through fleet shuffling, would have by now seen the departure of its oldest and least reliable medium-sized 767s as well as 747s.
In the sort of logic accountants embrace, but engineers and flight standards professionals abhor, it anticipated the removal of those 747s by outsourcing the heavy maintenance of their engines to a Rolls-Royce facility in Hong Kong, saving it money up front, but costing it control over a key element of its brand image, which is excellence in safety and management.
As the issues on the older 747 engines and the A380 have demonstrated, Qantas trusted Rolls-Royce, and put issues of quality, reliability and equipment upgrades out of mind and off balance sheet. It didn’t even know what Rolls-Royce was doing to the type of engine used on its A380s until one of them disintegrated and pierced the giant jet’s wing, fuel tanks and various control systems with high-speed debris could have destroyed it had the damage, by chance, been inflicted at slightly different entry and exit points.
There are many grounds for being cautious about directly linking off-shoring to all of the problems Qantas is having with unreliable fleet, but the facts are that the incidents are happening too often, and the company no longer believes in investing more than anyone else in flight standards or maintenance.
A constant claim made by Qantas in recent years is that it conforms to world’s-best practice, or meets all of its regulatory obligations to maintenance and flight standards.
Which means it has embraced mediocrity. Any airline can claim to meet the world’s highest standards if it achieves a tick in all the required boxes for compliance. The standards Qantas now holds aloft are world’s best airline business practices.
But only for so long.
Dear headline sub: The of the word “headshot” in this article appears to be somewhat unfortunate, especially wrt recent events in USA.
‘Safety is our number one priority’ – phhft
Ben, I still believe that your comments treat Qantas too harshly.
The reality is that Qantas operates one of the longest non-stop routes in the world: Sydney to Los Angeles, and Melbourne-Los Angeles which is even longer.
V Australia elected to go with the B-777, which is a superb aircraft and demonstrably more reliable than the earlier generation B-747-400. AirNZ also opted for the B-777, but their route from Auckland is shorter. The Pacific is also flown non stop by Delta Airlines from LAX, and by Air Canada who fly Sydney-Vancouver
As great as the B-777 is, and as arguable as it is that Qantas should have bit the bullet and ordered the B-777 before the Dreamliner and A-380 delivery promises were called into question, facts are they didn’t (sadly, IMHO).
Their call that the average punter really doesn’t want to fly the Pacific’s longest legs in the world on just two very big donks was a fair argument, but disproved by AirNZ, Air Canada, Delta and V Australia, who make it work.
The reality is that the GE-90 engine is far better suited to its role, than the RB-211 which had to be “stretched” to meet the role.
Instead of the B-777, Qantas ordered from Boeing a unique version of the B-747; the B-747-400ER, having the additional 755km range to make LAX-Melbourne economically practical. These carry the GE CF6-80C2B5F engines, (and have operated reliably), as the RR RB-211 could not be stretched to the thrust level required. Sydney-LAX is operated by the B-747-400 with the RR RB-211-524G-T Trent engine, which has been having the angst your article refers to.
If this angst were a Qantas problem, we would be seeing Qantas having problems with the CF-6 on the 747-ER and B-767, or the CFM-56 on the B-737 fleet, or the Jetstar A320 fleet with their IAE V2500 engines.
No, all the angst has been with the RB-211 and the major failings of the Trent 972 exposed by the QF-32 incident. An outsourced engine maintenance program which works for the CF-6, and the RR Trent 700 on the A-330s, are not working with the RB-211’s on the B-747 and with the Trent 972 on the A380.
What’s the common factor? … RR. The RB-211’s are being driven hard on the Sydney – LAX route. The RB-211 is the lowest thrust of the three engine types available on the B747-400, and while efficient, are either not proving as durable, or are suffering for externally managed outsourced maintenance provided by RR. How much of these problems with the RB-211 are due to QF outsourcing a capability previously held in house is not obvious, but likely a factor.
None of this suggests that QF are only meeting “minimum” International airline best business practice. QF has a right to expect the manufacturer would meet a standard well above “minimum” in the overhaul/repair of these engines, and even higher than their own standards. The fact this is not happening is a shame on RR, not on QF. So much of all airlines equipment is being managed by equipment vendors on MRO basis as the manufacturers are increasingly the only ones able to maintain the capital investment in test equipment, and investment in technical training, because they see a much higher work flow than any individual airline would.
I contend QF have built themselves an issue over RR engine maintenance, but not due to incompetence or parsimony. What others describe as parsimony is probably better described as responsible efficiency.
The fact that RR do not appear to be delivering on their end should be far more clearly identified, and not reflected back on QF as somehow slipping to a lower standard. The facts don’t support this assumption.
What I would like to know, why Qantas, has slipped from being considered the safest airline, to now just another airline, couldn’t have anything with going offshore for maintenance could it?
Few , including myself, would dispute your summary of the engine situation at Qantas. My references to minimum standards are directly linked to repeated statements from Qantas, in relation to flight standards and safety, that it meets world’s best practice buy adhering to all Australian or international requirements. In short, to the minimum legal requirements. Qantas conforms, not leads.
It is not ‘responsible efficiency’ for Qantas to persist with its RR engine arrangements in the light of recent discoveries, which to quote its CEO, involved not telling the airline it was making changes to the Trent engines, or even why it was making those changes, and why it wasn’t making them to Qantas engines on in-service A380s before it made them to aircraft still on the assembly line or recently delivered to other customers.
In my view that is prima facie a really material and serious breach of trust, and requires a reversal of policy at Qantas, specifically in relation to Rolls-Royce products, and more generally, in a review of similar arrangements applying to other engine requirements.
Given the guidance already provided by Joyce, I would find it difficult to reconcile that position with a continuation of the previous arrangements applying to Rolls-Royce engines.
Qantas acted very swiftly and properly to the QF32 incident, as we have reported consistently since it occurred. The scrutiny now falls on the lessons, and aftermath, punctuated, it seems, by further service failures.