"Rolls-Royce ... knew about the faults that the current airworthiness directive concerning these engines says are likely to have caused an intense oil fire in a structural cavity in the intermediate pressure turbine area of the engine."
"Rolls-Royce had designed and was introducing a fix for the oil leak issues for this into the engines at its own speed. "
"And the questions concerning the timeliness of the Rolls-Royce responses to a known problem, and its capacity and willingness to share them with the airlines concerned will not go away. "
So, bottom line. I'll ask if nobody else will. Is he saying that the engine blowup was due to a problem that Rolls-Royce knew about and failed to remedy in the in-service T900s?
HE is saying the RR knew of the problem and were tardy in their response and possibly not entirely upfront about the problem and it's possible consequences
and
he is also saying that QANTAS shouldn't divest itself of its responsibilities in the maintenance of it's aircraft.
They have a duty to understand that RR will act in the interest of RR and not of QF. QF need either much stricter oversight of their relationship with RR or they need to maintain the engines themselves. (choose your poison here)
in any SLA you need to
fully understand the systems that the SLA covers and be able to protect the operation so that the provider cannot and doesn't only fulfil the min requirements, esp in something that can damage your brand.
in computing there are many cases of companies/govts etc taking back the operation of their various systems because outsourcing hasn't provided the necessary level of service. I would be less than shocked if the same thing happened in the airline industry.