Rolls-Royce to replace turbines in Airbus A380s

The world’s second largest engine maker Rolls-Royce Group Plc is making arrangements to ship engines from Airbus SAS A380’s production line to replace turbines, reports said.

Rolls-Royce has asked Airbus to return some A380 engines from production lines to use them to replace faulty ones on airplanes in service.

The engine maker said it has identified a component that led to the blowout of a Trent 900 powerplant on a Qantas Airways A380 flight. Airbus A380, which is world’s largest passenger aircraft, was hit by safety concerns after a Rolls-Royce engine partly disintegrated forcing a Qantas flight to make an emergency landing in Singapore on November 4.

Rolls-Royce said it is working with its customers including Singapore Airlines and Deutsche Lufthansa to replace the part.

Airbus CEO Tom Enders said last week that deliveries of A380s may suffer next year as Airbus was scheduled to deliver over a dozen Rolls-Royce-powered A380s by end of next year to Singapore, Qantas and Lufthansa.

One of the four engines on a Qantas A380 blew up shortly after takeoff from Singapore thus prompting Qantas to ground its fleet if A380s while two other carriers switched engines.

Qantas has kept its fleet of six A380s grounded for the 13th day and has said it continues to work closely with Rolls-Royce.