Cathay Pacific inspects all A350 jets after engine issue

Hong Kong's flag carrier was planning to axe an additional 10 return flights on Wednesday, following the discovery on Monday of a technical issue with a component of the Rolls-Royce manufactured engine of one of its A350 jets.

Dozens of flights had already been cancelled.

In response, the airline said that it had conducted inspections of its entire A350 fleet, comprising 48 aircraft, and had identified 15 jets which needed to have engine components replaced.

Three aircraft had already been repaired and all of the affected jets were expected to be flight worthy by Saturday.

According to Cathay, the component "was the first of its type to suffer such failure on any A350 aircraft worldwide", Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Cathay did not specify what the engine part was.

The day before a Cathay A350-1000 heading for Zurich had been forced to return to Hong Kong.

Long-haul services should not be affected, the airline added on Tuesday.

"While the news raises some concerns, our preliminary analysis is that the financial liability could be contained," analysts at Deutsche Bank said.

"Hence, our positive view of the [Rolls-Royce] equity story is unchanged."

Airbus A350-900s used two Trent XWB-84 engines manufactured by Rolls Royce, while the A350-1000 employed the Trent XWB-97.

On the sidelines of the Dubai Airshow in November 2023, Emirates boss Tim Clark had labelled the Trent XWB-97 as "defective", explaining that the maintenance costs were too high given the harsh environment in which his airline operated.

That was not the case with the XWB-84.

Shares of Rolls Royce had finished the previous session down by 6.5%.

As of 0800 BST, shares of Cathay Pacific were trading 0.62% lower to 7.960 HKD.

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