SEOUL: “Japan Airlines Sees No Cancellations from A350 Inspections”, Japan Airlines announced on Friday that it anticipates no flight cancellations or delays due to recent inspections mandated by Europe’s air safety regulator. The inspections pertain to the engines of Airbus A350-1000 jets.
Rolls-Royce said on Friday it was “confident in our ability to deliver on the inspection regime”.
Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific cancelled a number of flights this week while it checked and repaired A350 engines after a Zurich-bound jet forced to return to Hong Kong on Monday due to the engine problem, later traced to a fuel leak.
EASA gave airlines between three and 30 days to carry out visual checks and measurements on flexible fuel hose connections inside the A350-1000 engines. The smaller A350-900 variant is not subject to the order.
Japan Airlines (JAL) inspected its entire fleet of A350-1000 and A350-900 jets earlier this week, but said it would need to conduct additional inspections in accordance with the EASA directive and service instructions from Rolls-Royce.
Qatar Airways, which operates the largest number of A350-1000 jets, said on Friday it was carrying out inspections after it received the directives.
Etihad Airways, which has five A350-1000 jets, said it began inspecting engines proactively before the directive was issued and continues to do so in compliance with directive.
“Etihad has discovered no issues, nor experienced any similar events with the engine, so does not anticipate any impact on its operations,” it said in a statement.
Accident investigators in Hong Kong, where Cathay is based, are still investigating the incident.
