Qantas sticks with ‘problem’ planes

A report by Steve Creedy in The Australian, says that Qantas will proceed with a $400 million plan to expand its fleet of turbo-prop Bombardier Q400 regional airliners, despite safety scares that have prompted a European carrier to abandon the plane.

Scandinavian Airlines System said yesterday that it had decided to immediately stop flying the 72-seater plane after “repeated quality-related problems”.

The decision comes after airlines around the world, including the Qantas regional operator QantasLink, last month grounded their Q400 fleets after two of the planes crashed within a week.

In each case, the undercarriage on aircraft operated by SAS collapsed soon after touchdown.

The accidents led to a global alert from Canadian manufacturer Bombardier aimed at older Q400s, prompting Qantaslink to inspect its seven aircraft.  Loose nuts were discovered on the undercarriage of some planes.

SAS was the first airline in the world to introduce the Q400 in 2000 and had been using eight planes that accounted for about 5per cent of its traffic.

It said yesterday that the Q400 had suffered repeated problems that had led it to conclude that the plane did not match customers’ expectations of punctuality.

It said its flight operations had always enjoyed an excellent reputation and there was a risk that use of the Q400 could eventually damage the SAS brand.

“Confidence in the Q400 has diminished considerably and our customers are becoming increasingly doubtful about flying this type of aircraft,” chief executive Mats Jansson said. “Accordingly, with the board of directors’ approval, I have decided to immediately remove Dash 8 Q400 aircraft from service.”

Bombardier said it was disappointed by the decision and that it did not believe the plane’s landing gear was defective.

It said the company and landing gear manufacturer Goodrich had completed a full review of the system and the results had confirmed “its safe design and operational integrity”.

Qantas, which announced last week it would pay $400 million to acquire another 12 Q400s, said it had no plans to remove its planes from service but was continuing to monitor the situation closely.

“Our Q400 aircraft were inspected, including the required visual inspection and required functional testing of the landing gear mechanism in September,” a spokeswoman said. “All of our aircraft were cleared to fly.” She said the Qantas aircraft had all been operated for fewer than 5000 cycles – landings and takeoffs – compared with more than 14,000 cycles for the aircraft involved in the accidents.

“We will comply with any further directives issued,” she said. “None have yet been received but we remain in constant contact with the manufacturer.”

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority yesterday wrote to Bombardier and the Danish regulator seeking more information on the SAS decision.

However, spokesman Peter Gibson said CASA was confident that an airworthiness directive put in place in September, and subsequently beefed up to require more frequent inspections, covered the issues involved.

A Report by The Mole