qf94 said
The public won't care at first who did the shoddy maintenance. That will come after it is found that the work wasn't done locally.
and
Not QANTAS's fault, but they got hammered for a little while.
Mate, you are absolutely right in what you say but also slightly incorrect. The public did, and still does, see the A380 engine explosion as a "Qantas maintenance failure". What you say about first impressions is absolutely spot on and what is at risk when you outsource the very essence of what you have a reputation for. In QF's case: maintenance excellence.
The general public still hasn't shifted its thinking on who is to blame for QF32. They don't generally name RR as the sole culprit. In fact, most of the general public would be hard pressed to even NAME Rolls Royce as the manufacturer. In their mind still: it was a Qantas failing. That is a failing of QF Public Relations and it was not even a maintenance issue, outsourced or otherwise! It was a manufacturing issue, under warranty.
I continue to hear people say they "will not fly with Qantas because their maintenance standards have slipped" or "because of all the maintenance problems". A number of them, when pressed, will cite QF32 as an example of what they mean. Major
PR failure. But then again, OW and her team have been distracted beating up on those nasty employees, I suppose.