Qantas flight forced to turn back due to engine problem

[Ash W]

Adam how do you meassure safety? To me there is no one metric, so it cannot actually be meassured, which leaves it unfortunatly to perception.

[D Chan]

Originally Posted by Ash W

Adam how do you meassure safety? To me there is no one metric, so it cannot actually be meassured, which leaves it unfortunatly to perception.

whilst there is no one metric, there are many indicators (hundreds) that can be used (the public won't know of course). I actually think it is theoretically possible to measure it (extremely complex) but it's not economically feasible, extremely time consuming and has to be done by an independent body that has access to internal safety information within airlines (to which some airlines won't agree to). So whilst it can be done it will never be done.

For a start if an airline adopts industry best practices in safety - this alone will make a pretty big difference. Pitch this against cash-strapped airlines from 3rd-world countries and it becomes fairly obvious.

Yet all of these will count for nothing if a flock of birds causes a fatal birdstrike event (knocking out all engines) or there was a mid-air collision such as the DHL 757 and the Tu154 a few years ago in Europe. It can happen to any airline, and completely outside their control, no matter how 'safe' they are.


In terms of the recent media scrutiny it has been amazing to see the amount of rubbish-reporting. In particular, QF has been singled out on some of the common issues that affect airlines operating around the world day in day. To keep things short if another airline in Australia have similar issues to QF's and it goes unnoticed you really have to question why QF has been singled out.

For example, CASA's flight safety publication includes a list of SDRs (Service Difficulty Reports) http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_asset.../mar-apr10.pdf, and the ATSB publishes weekly summaries: http://www.atsb.gov.au/aviation/week...mary/2010.aspx

There are plenty of issues that go unreported, and unoticed, day in day out. Take a look yourself

Obviously either the media hasn't done their homework or they are all 'cashing in' to the new found obsession (intended to give them more 'clicks' or 'hits' to their stories). To the uninformed this creates an exceptionally bad (and perhaps unwarranted) perception.


And then there's the issue with the Union's claims about poor overseas maintenance standards - the very same used by global carriers like Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines. We never hear the unions warning the public not to fly these airlines, and since they don't, isn't it fairly obvious why they make a huge fuss about these critical safety issues?

[Paul McFarlane]

Originally Posted by Adam G

Take an airline like Southwest for example - a fleet size of 540ish, a lot of very short sectors and in almost 40 years of operation still hasn't had a fatal event occur.

What about Southwest flight 1248 on December 8, 2005 that killed the boy on the ground. Granted it wasn't a maintenance issue, but it was still an unfortunate fatal accident.

[Andrew P]

MESSAGE ON EASTER DISRUPTIONS FROM QANTAS CEO ALAN JOYCE

Joyce has issued pretty strong comments, here are just some

Qantas has recently experienced major disruptions to our international network. You may have been affected directly or indirectly by the disruptions, or seen the media coverage and speculation about Qantas safety and maintenance standards.

As one of our valued customers, I wanted to be in touch with you directly about this. I want to apologise if you were affected personally by the disruptions. I know that Easter is a special opportunity to unite family and friends, and I sincerely regret any frustration and anxiety you may have experienced due to the delays.

.....

The first thing to say about each of the four incidents is that safety was never an issue. These were mechanical issues: at no time did they represent safety threats....

good to see QF are at least addressing the press

[Sarah C]

It was a great letter from Joyce. He was honest and provided facts that everyone could understand.

[Andrew M]

Great PR !

10/10 for Qantas for doing that!

0/10 for the media publishing it all in the first place.

Funny how the United Airlines near miss a few weeks back only got a small mention.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/u...-1225847786869

THE US National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation into how a commercial jet came within 300 feet of a mid-air collision with small airplane over San Francisco on Saturday.

[Ryan K.]

About time for Mr. Joyce to come out and say something. Him being such an out spoken person, it was only a matter of time to see him addressing the customers about the reliability issues.

The message was well address and clarifies concerns for the travelling public. Only comment is maybe he should advertise more on the schedule of their 747 fleet upgrade to 380.

At the end of the day, you can't dodge these kind of media reports, you can only steer how the public thinks about your airline. Final words is this guy really know how to do business.

[Sarah C]

Originally Posted by Ryan K.

About time for Mr. Joyce to come out and say something. Him being such an out spoken person, it was only a matter of time to see him addressing the customers about the reliability issues.

What reliability issues? Two engines had surges which are rare occurances, it is just unlucky they happened so close together.

If a CEO issued this letter for everything that goes wrong everyday to thier airline, they would be doing it daily. Aircraft are machines - things go wrong, airlines do all they can to prevent them, sometimes things just happen.

Joyce isn't outspoken - he is honest when people ask him questions. I think he handled it really well - responding to every delay is over the top and only feeds the frenzy.

[Andrew McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Ryan K.

Only comment is maybe he should advertise more on the schedule of their 747 fleet upgrade to 380.

They did that just recently, in great detail, at their half-yearly results media briefing, and this was widely reported. But exact dates can't be given, especially with Airbus's continually lagging A380 delivery schedule.

From my experience, Alan Joyce is fundamentally an honest and decent guy who is battling that ever present balance between customers, employees and shareholders, whilst at the same time trying to bring a 'jobs for life' culture kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

[Michael Cleary]

Strange how (and what) the press report isnt it!!

It seems that V Australia suffered a delay of about 18 hours at Phuket last Friday (09/04) due to an engine problem at startup.

According to a colleague from work who was on it, (VA20, 18:40 from Phuket to Melbourne), all went well until engine start, at which time one of the engines made some unusual noises. Back to the gate and to hotels for the night, finally arriving in Melbourne at around 23:30 on Saturday night - rather naturally too late to go on to Sydney, so they paid for a short stay in one of the Hotels.

And not a word in the press from what I (didnt) see.