(Reuters) – Cathay Pacific Airways said on Tuesday it had identified 15 aircraft in its Airbus A350 fleet with faulty engine components that needed to be replaced.
The Hong Kong-based carrier said three of the 48 planes inspected, powered by British manufacturer Rolls-Royce engines, had already been successfully repaired and all planes were expected to resume operations by Saturday.
The airline cancelled at least 34 round-trip flights as a safety precaution after an engine component failed on one of its planes minutes after a flight took off from Hong Kong on Monday.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Monday that the incident was caused by a problem with a fuel injector inside a Rolls-Royce XWB-97 jet engine.
Other airlines said they had not yet received instructions to examine similar engines.
Japan Airlines, which has five A350-1000s, all less than a year old, said it had asked Rolls-Royce for more information and had not stopped A350 flights.
“If the engine manufacturer takes further action, we will respond accordingly,” a spokesman for the group said.
Taiwanese carrier China Airlines, which operates 15 A350-900 aircraft but no A350-1000s, said its fleet did not use the affected engines and its operations should therefore not be affected.
“The company will continue to pay attention to the original manufacturer’s instructions and take the initiative to organize test operations to ensure the safety of flight operations,” it said in a statement.
Data from flight tracking service FlightRadar24 shows that other major operators of the A350-1000 and the smaller, more popular A350-900 were operating their aircraft normally on Tuesday.
Rolls-Royce has not yet issued any guidance to airlines about possible inspections, according to an industry source who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
According to Swiss aviation information provider ch-aviation, there are around 88 A350-1000 aircraft in service worldwide.
Rolls-Royce shares, which fell 6.5% on Monday, were up 4% at 07:21 GMT on Tuesday.
(Written by Sameer Manekar in Bangalore and Lisa Barrington in Seoul; Diana Mandiá, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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