Damaged Qantas A380 to return to service

The Qantas Airbus A380 damaged last year in an uncontained engined failure will return to service by the end of the year, reports Aviation Week. This is in keeping with QF never having an airframe loss.

What caught our eye in the article is the repair bill: US$140m. This is widely reported to be the pricing for the launch customers when the A380 program was launched (though we have no idea if this is QF’s early-bird pricing). Wow.

20 Comments on “Damaged Qantas A380 to return to service

  1. Is the aircraft will have restrictions (more frequent inspections) or a shorter life?

  2. The repair price of $140M must be near 100% of the value of this A-380. Does this repair price include the lost revenue to QF for not being able to use it until the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013? Who is paying for the repairs? RR?

    • If you had read the linked article, all your questions would have been answered.

      “The repair price of $140M must be near 100% of the value of this A-380”
      Ohh is it?

  3. I guess the 140m also includes at least two engines (at 20-25m each).
    Although 140m sounds high, getting an A380 now will cost well in excess of 250m.

    I think the repair zone will require more frequent inspections than the rest of the aircraft, but that shouldn’t be a showstopper. The problem is rather that a repaired section is always stiffer, hence other parts of the aircraft are subject to higher stresses.

    • “I guess the 140m also includes at least two engines (at 20-25m each).”

      No. Qantas has a power by the hour contract with RR. The cost is for the A/C.

  4. “will return to service by the end of the year” that was last year 2011 not 2012

    • Actually and interesting information for a change.
      Buit where do you drag the “yet another” thing from ?

      • As part of the fall out of the Trent engine explosion all operators of Trent engined A380s must do additional inspections, and removal and replacement cycles on the engines are significantly reduced from normal. This is what I meant.

      • To give this some perspective:

        If you google for “A380 cracks” you get (again) swamped in nontech sites bringing this on ( “all gonna die” 😉 just like
        the rush of articles that insinuated a down in flames scenario
        after QF32.
        Could this be another helpfully provided article template by an “interested party” to create FUD ?

      • To add:
        Going by a news item from FG this issue was found in 2011Q2 and seems to have run its regular path of actions already.

        i.e. someone is trying to make a belated large splash with
        inserting this late and seemingly overblown into the newsstream. compensation and distraction for freshly deliverd dreadmliners going tech?

  5. Not withstanding the expense comments here, which are inflated, the actual figure we likely will never know, as is often the case much has been learnt & gained from this unfortunate incident.

    Laterly the not inconsiderable work undertaken to return the airframe to operational service, revealed the robust nature of the wing & the airframe surrounding the impact area

  6. Only $140 million? 😉

    Apparently, the repair cost for Emirstes’ “unwanted” A340-500 that was damaged at Melbourne was around $80 million.

    The Airbus A340-500 registration A6-ERG has been brought into a flyable condition over the last couple of weeks – as The Aviation Herald had already reported on April 21st – and today departed Melbourne,VI (Australia) for Toulouse (France) with intermediate stops in Perth,WA (Australia), Singapore (Singapore), Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and Cairo (Egypt) as flight EK-7608, cruising from Melbourne to Perth at 10.000 feet maximum altitude. The unpressurized flight to Toulouse at 10000 feet is scheduled to take 4 days.

    Final repairs to allow the airplane to become pressurized again are to take place at the Airbus factory in Toulouse. The repair cost are estimated at 80 million US Dollars (58 million Euros).

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalairliners/4627928832/

    • Interesting piece. The Airbus statement identified the manufacturing aspect to this problem, which explains the ‘limited number’ of the A380s involved. Since this is not a safety issue, the performance is unaffected and the repairs can be done during a scheduled maintenance, i would consider this to be a non issue, particularly if the authorities to date had good visibility of this problem.

  7. Pingback: Air India Paid ~$110 Million Per Boeing 787, Including Engines - FlyerTalk Forums

  8. Howard :
    As part of the fall out of the Trent engine explosion all operators of Trent engined A380s must do additional inspections, and removal and replacement cycles on the engines are significantly reduced from normal. This is what I meant.

    That is limited to users of the “unreworked” Trent 900 engines, right?

    Not quite what I would tag under “yet another …” . (i.e. adding to a path strewn with limitations)
    But it certainly fits in with painting select things with preferably negative connotations
    like selling findings and processing from last summer as a just discovered and imminent danger or injury from turbulence as another Airbus/Qantas negligence.

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