Hong Kong’s flagship airline, Cathay Pacific, said on Tuesday that 15 of its Airbus A350 planes needed repairs after an engine component failed on a plane en route to Zurich.
Cathay Pacific said it had inspected all 48 planes in its Airbus A350 fleet, adding that three of them had been fixed by Tuesday afternoon. It said it had canceled at least 34 round-trip flights since Monday due to engine problems. All flights were expected to return to operations by Saturday.
The carrier launched an investigation after one of its A350 planes took off He dumped fuel into the sea for half an hour before he experienced a problem from Hong Kong International Airport on Monday and had to return to the airport.
Rolls-Royce, maker of the Trent XWB-97 engines used in A350 planes, said Cathay Pacific had secured the spare parts needed to replace its components.
Rolls-Royce’s stock fell 6.5 percent on Monday after it initially said it could not determine what caused the incident. Shares bounced back partially on Tuesday.
“Rolls-Royce will now be in a better position to analyze and determine the root causes of the failure and then tell Cathay and other operators what to do next,” Warren Chim Wing-nin said. Aircraft Department at the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, a professional body.
Cathay Pacific did not provide details on the engine component that failed, but said it was “the first of its kind to encounter such a failure in any A350 aircraft worldwide.”
Dozens of airlines around the world use the Airbus A350. Besides Cathay Pacific, other airlines with the largest A350 fleet include Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways, Air France, Delta Air Lines and Air China.
Qatar Airways, which has 58 Airbus A350 aircraft, said its fleet operations were not affected but it “continues to monitor any developments.”
None of the other airlines immediately responded to requests for comment.
Chinese news media reported that the Civil Aviation Administration of China is looking into whether it needs to inspect the A350 engines of its domestic carriers, including Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Sichuan Airlines.
Airbus is the world’s largest plane manufacturer, a prestigious position it has held for five consecutive years BoeingIts embattled rival, the airliner, has faced a series of failures with its 737 Max line.
An engine component failure on Cathay Pacific’s A350 plane on Monday was the second engine incident in three days for the carrier. One of its Airbus A330 planes failed to take off from a runway in the southern Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung due to what the company said was a technical problem.
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