Merged: And another QF Roller goes bang
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has anyone noticed how many 767 APU's have been dying lately
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Where is the CEO in all this?
Awesome move "board". JB just wasn't the man for the job right?..... bwahahahaaahhhaaa
Let this be a lesson to all the greedy, money grabbing, bean counting, skimping, corner cutting, new age, synergy studying, latte sipping, wan&er, educated idiot, sociopathic, bonus driven, managers!!!!
bbbbbbbbzzzzbbbbbtimeforalaydownzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbbbbzz
Awesome move "board". JB just wasn't the man for the job right?..... bwahahahaaahhhaaa
Let this be a lesson to all the greedy, money grabbing, bean counting, skimping, corner cutting, new age, synergy studying, latte sipping, wan&er, educated idiot, sociopathic, bonus driven, managers!!!!
bbbbbbbbzzzzbbbbbtimeforalaydownzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbbbbzz
Sprucegoose
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Maybe the major shareholders should be lobbied for a shake-up of the board and management.
Funnily enough they don't seem to realise that profits can be increased by actually spending! This of course requires some industry knowledge, much easier to keep cutting costs...
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I love the crocodile tears , where were you all when me and many of my mates where put on the scrapheap after years of quality engines being produced out of the Mascot engine shop . We told the mugs what would happen , and unfortunately we are right , no joy in that , but lots of things against us including the green/ labour pollies who oppposed building a new test cell at mascot . Anyway the chooks are coming home to roost big time.
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Qantas is just on a constant downward spiral. Well their reputation is at the very least. The public don't care about stats or how minor or much the PPruners say what an over reaction by the media etc etc.
The fact is they are in the media constantly with safety problems. We read more about them now a days (weekly if not daily) more than many of the asian carriers. And that is not good. A once iconic name brand is truly now associated with safety failures. When will it all stop???
The fact is they are in the media constantly with safety problems. We read more about them now a days (weekly if not daily) more than many of the asian carriers. And that is not good. A once iconic name brand is truly now associated with safety failures. When will it all stop???
guys ive just browsed the statements. Ive decided as a qantas club member yes i am that why don't bother with them anymore. Their maintenance isn't anything special according to the local media. Too much work for a sad local product. Yes i am bias as i now work for another carrier, but QANTAS had it all, but chooses to throw it away like a half drunk six pack of emu bitter...
What once was good now is
Truely sad...
What once was good now is
Truely sad...
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Qantas plane makes emergency landing in Bangkok
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It seems like a large part of the misinformed, and naive media are on some sort of witch hunt for Qantas with regard to their style of reporting. They have one of the best safety records in the business.
Golly gosh! Anything to do with this?:
A Qantas Boeing 747-400, registration VH-OJT performing flight QF-2 from Bangkok (Thailand) to Sydney,NS (Australia) with 325 passengers, was about 30 minutes into the flight when the crew observed one of the engines (RB211) consumed too much fuel. The crew reduced the engine's thrust and returned to Bangkok for a safe landing about 75 minutes after departure.
Incident: Qantas B744 near Bangkok on Jan 25th 2011, engine consumed too much fuel
Anything to do with this?:A Qantas Boeing 747-400, registration VH-OJT performing flight QF-2 from Bangkok (Thailand) to Sydney,NS (Australia) with 325 passengers, was about 30 minutes into the flight when the crew observed one of the engines (RB211) consumed too much fuel. The crew reduced the engine's thrust and returned to Bangkok for a safe landing about 75 minutes after departure.
Incident: Qantas B744 near Bangkok on Jan 25th 2011, engine consumed too much fuel
There may be several things going on with QF's RR engines at present and my back of the envelope analysis seemed to indicate that the numbers were almost, but not quite, statistically significant of late. Now that was making a number of assumptions that may not necessarily be correct, so don't quote me.
As for the "other operators having, or not having, the same trouble" argument, you have to control for the age of the aircraft and componentry, not because stuff has "worn out" but because it may simply be too young to have even been overhauled at all.
After that, you have to consider the operational history of the aircraft the numbers of cycles/landings/hours, etc. although I would have thought QF long haul would be relatively kind to engines compared to short haul.
As for CASA doing anything, I doubt they have the skills, let alone the inclination to do anything more than check the paperwork. Same goes for KPMG. Forensic maintenance and reliability analysis is not a common skill set.
The problem with outsourcing is that you get your product "as per contract" which generally means that if a component is within manufacturers tolerances, in it goes. You don't get the chance to go down to the floor and organise an "extra special" job and tweak things still you get them perfect.
Then again, if ex engine shop posters here are to be believed, QF knew more about the reliability and required build standards of some RB211 models than Rolls Royce did, and built them to tighter tolerances for improved reliability as a result. Therefore the demise of the engine shop could explain the increase in incidents.
Furthermore, the situation outlined above would in my experience be perfectly consistent with the usual arrogant, insular, ignorant breed of British management who aren't going to listen to Australian colonials, let alone take advice from them about anything. The great Rolls Royce gives you an engine, as a mere user, why should we take advice from you?
As for bean counters and APU fuel, if true, that is a classic example of what's termed "sub optimisation". The fuel bean counter gets a pat on the head for saving $12 million. Meanwhile on another floor of the building, the engineering bean counter is scratching his head about the sudden $25 million increase in APU maintenance costs.
On the subject of APU's, Garrett Airesearch (now Raytheon?) used to have a simply rotten reputation for reliability and product support to the point where a Boeing VP stated at a conference I attended that if they could buy APU's from anyone else on the planet, they would.
Reliability got so bad on the Fokker F28 APU's in Western Australia that pilots kept the Starboard engine running at idle on the ground rather than risk shutting down and not being able to restart. I traced that to a badly designed over run clutch in the APU starter. We went through about Sixty starter motors before Garrett redesigned the damn thing.
As for the "other operators having, or not having, the same trouble" argument, you have to control for the age of the aircraft and componentry, not because stuff has "worn out" but because it may simply be too young to have even been overhauled at all.
After that, you have to consider the operational history of the aircraft the numbers of cycles/landings/hours, etc. although I would have thought QF long haul would be relatively kind to engines compared to short haul.
As for CASA doing anything, I doubt they have the skills, let alone the inclination to do anything more than check the paperwork. Same goes for KPMG. Forensic maintenance and reliability analysis is not a common skill set.
The problem with outsourcing is that you get your product "as per contract" which generally means that if a component is within manufacturers tolerances, in it goes. You don't get the chance to go down to the floor and organise an "extra special" job and tweak things still you get them perfect.
Then again, if ex engine shop posters here are to be believed, QF knew more about the reliability and required build standards of some RB211 models than Rolls Royce did, and built them to tighter tolerances for improved reliability as a result. Therefore the demise of the engine shop could explain the increase in incidents.
Furthermore, the situation outlined above would in my experience be perfectly consistent with the usual arrogant, insular, ignorant breed of British management who aren't going to listen to Australian colonials, let alone take advice from them about anything. The great Rolls Royce gives you an engine, as a mere user, why should we take advice from you?
As for bean counters and APU fuel, if true, that is a classic example of what's termed "sub optimisation". The fuel bean counter gets a pat on the head for saving $12 million. Meanwhile on another floor of the building, the engineering bean counter is scratching his head about the sudden $25 million increase in APU maintenance costs.
On the subject of APU's, Garrett Airesearch (now Raytheon?) used to have a simply rotten reputation for reliability and product support to the point where a Boeing VP stated at a conference I attended that if they could buy APU's from anyone else on the planet, they would.
Reliability got so bad on the Fokker F28 APU's in Western Australia that pilots kept the Starboard engine running at idle on the ground rather than risk shutting down and not being able to restart. I traced that to a badly designed over run clutch in the APU starter. We went through about Sixty starter motors before Garrett redesigned the damn thing.
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sunny, there is a fuel conservation group and surely they do not have anything to do with apu reliability.
I hear they actually had watchers in the terminal making sure pwr is plugged in.
anyway sorry about the thread drift.
rollers are giving the brand some grief.How many are actually related in terms of why the blowout, shutdown air return etc I dont know but the media no matter how ignorant or tabloid they are, are caning qf for everything.
I guess it will be brand management not policy change.
I hear they actually had watchers in the terminal making sure pwr is plugged in.
anyway sorry about the thread drift.
rollers are giving the brand some grief.How many are actually related in terms of why the blowout, shutdown air return etc I dont know but the media no matter how ignorant or tabloid they are, are caning qf for everything.
I guess it will be brand management not policy change.
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Qantas loses another Rolls-Royce engine, and the plot
From Crikey :
I think the last part sums it up really : "Qantas failures. They are too frequent. The carrier has become unreliable". That's certainly what the punters are thinking. Lets hope the management are taking notice.
Qantas loses another Rolls-Royce engine, and the plot
January 26, 2011 – 5:56 pm, by Ben Sandilands
There is something grievously wrong with the Qantas response to the frequency with which the Rolls-Royce RB211 engines fitted to its Boeing 747-400 fleet are failing.
According to Qantas, in what is now a rut it has trodden about four times this month, the failures have nothing to do with the outsourcing of the heavy maintenance of these engines to a Rolls-Royce centre of excellence in Hong Kong.
They are purely coincidental and do not come with safety implications.
These claims are dangerous nonsense from an airline that has filed a fierce indictment of the conduct of Rolls-Royce in a statement of claims in the Federal Court in relation to the Trent 900 engines fitted to its Airbus A380s following the serious in flight failure of one of them operating QF32 from Singapore to Sydney last November 4.
It’s the same company.
The most recent incident was the return of QF2 to Bangkok on Tuesday night early in a flight to Sydney after fuel burn anomalies were noticed in one of the engines. Most of the 362 passengers on board are spending a second night in Bangkok.
The safety issue with repeated in service failures of this nature isn’t the response of the pilots or the airline to the actual situation. Qantas has an excellent record when it comes to supporting stranded customers, and its pilots, although apparently considered too expensive by the airline, have always dealt effectively with the incidents, at least in its long haul international and mainline domestic jets.
The issue is where these Rolls-Royce powered jets fly. Which is long distances across the Pacific, far from alternative airports, and across the far southern Indian Ocean, where there are none. (Some Qantas 747s use GE engines instead.)
The platitudes are wearing thin when there is no evidence of real action by Qantas to identify any systemic issues with the maintenance arrangements it has for these engines, not that its airframe maintenance is entirely above suspicion after the dismal findings of the ATSB inquiry into the very serious electrical failure which occurred in January 2008 when a 747-400 also operating QF2 was fortuitously close to Bangkok at the end of its flight from London.
What is Qantas going to do to get rid of these jets, or restore its previous control over the maintenance of their engines?
And restore excellence to its Australian maintenance too. The report into the earlier QF2 incident makes its in-house standards look suss.
It is facile (yet correct) for management to blame Boeing for its inability to make the 787 Dreamliner work, which together with the A380s, were to be the key to shunting the oldest 747s and 767s out of service, starting in August 2008.
Qantas had every opportunity to escape from, or ameliorate the 787 induced fleet crisis from late 2008 when it was obvious that it had been lied to about the capacity of Boeing to meet the performance and delivery requirements the airline had signed up for.
It is alarming to review the combination of an aircraft manufacturer which could not tell the truth with an airline management that couldn’t recognise the truth. The obsequious acceptance by Qantas of each successive Boeing excuse for delivery schedule failure is inconsistent with any shareholder expectation that the airline is on top of what has now become the biggest fleet planning screw up in its history.
That is the message coming out of these in service Qantas failures. They are too frequent. The carrier has become unreliable. And just a bit too scary for some.
January 26, 2011 – 5:56 pm, by Ben Sandilands
There is something grievously wrong with the Qantas response to the frequency with which the Rolls-Royce RB211 engines fitted to its Boeing 747-400 fleet are failing.
According to Qantas, in what is now a rut it has trodden about four times this month, the failures have nothing to do with the outsourcing of the heavy maintenance of these engines to a Rolls-Royce centre of excellence in Hong Kong.
They are purely coincidental and do not come with safety implications.
These claims are dangerous nonsense from an airline that has filed a fierce indictment of the conduct of Rolls-Royce in a statement of claims in the Federal Court in relation to the Trent 900 engines fitted to its Airbus A380s following the serious in flight failure of one of them operating QF32 from Singapore to Sydney last November 4.
It’s the same company.
The most recent incident was the return of QF2 to Bangkok on Tuesday night early in a flight to Sydney after fuel burn anomalies were noticed in one of the engines. Most of the 362 passengers on board are spending a second night in Bangkok.
The safety issue with repeated in service failures of this nature isn’t the response of the pilots or the airline to the actual situation. Qantas has an excellent record when it comes to supporting stranded customers, and its pilots, although apparently considered too expensive by the airline, have always dealt effectively with the incidents, at least in its long haul international and mainline domestic jets.
The issue is where these Rolls-Royce powered jets fly. Which is long distances across the Pacific, far from alternative airports, and across the far southern Indian Ocean, where there are none. (Some Qantas 747s use GE engines instead.)
The platitudes are wearing thin when there is no evidence of real action by Qantas to identify any systemic issues with the maintenance arrangements it has for these engines, not that its airframe maintenance is entirely above suspicion after the dismal findings of the ATSB inquiry into the very serious electrical failure which occurred in January 2008 when a 747-400 also operating QF2 was fortuitously close to Bangkok at the end of its flight from London.
What is Qantas going to do to get rid of these jets, or restore its previous control over the maintenance of their engines?
And restore excellence to its Australian maintenance too. The report into the earlier QF2 incident makes its in-house standards look suss.
It is facile (yet correct) for management to blame Boeing for its inability to make the 787 Dreamliner work, which together with the A380s, were to be the key to shunting the oldest 747s and 767s out of service, starting in August 2008.
Qantas had every opportunity to escape from, or ameliorate the 787 induced fleet crisis from late 2008 when it was obvious that it had been lied to about the capacity of Boeing to meet the performance and delivery requirements the airline had signed up for.
It is alarming to review the combination of an aircraft manufacturer which could not tell the truth with an airline management that couldn’t recognise the truth. The obsequious acceptance by Qantas of each successive Boeing excuse for delivery schedule failure is inconsistent with any shareholder expectation that the airline is on top of what has now become the biggest fleet planning screw up in its history.
That is the message coming out of these in service Qantas failures. They are too frequent. The carrier has become unreliable. And just a bit too scary for some.
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I worked for a large airline a few years back when the 'business unit' philosophy was becoming the new style of managing. The manager of our business unit decreed that the APU's were to be run during overnight servicing instead of using ground power units (we did not have solid state power on the bays).
As Sunfish termed 'sub optimisation' our managers reasoning was not that he wanted to save the APU's but was actually the cost of the diesel that powered the GPU's came from his business unit budget, and the cost of the fuel the APU would burn came from the operations business unit budget.....go figure!!
It would appear that Qantas is suffering from much the same flawed management techniques, with nobody actually looking at the wider view.
That being said my opinion is that the QF senior management team have neither the inclination nor the know how to reverse this backwards slide. The Q has been such a reliable machine for so many decades that the current management have no perception of what it took to get the machine to be so reliable, and therefore are unable to recognise the symptoms of the machine being in bad need of a tune up. It would appear that with the current state of the Q machine it is rapidly moving from the desperate need of a tune-up towards a major breakdown requiring the need of a full overhaul.
As Sunfish termed 'sub optimisation' our managers reasoning was not that he wanted to save the APU's but was actually the cost of the diesel that powered the GPU's came from his business unit budget, and the cost of the fuel the APU would burn came from the operations business unit budget.....go figure!!
It would appear that Qantas is suffering from much the same flawed management techniques, with nobody actually looking at the wider view.
That being said my opinion is that the QF senior management team have neither the inclination nor the know how to reverse this backwards slide. The Q has been such a reliable machine for so many decades that the current management have no perception of what it took to get the machine to be so reliable, and therefore are unable to recognise the symptoms of the machine being in bad need of a tune up. It would appear that with the current state of the Q machine it is rapidly moving from the desperate need of a tune-up towards a major breakdown requiring the need of a full overhaul.
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management style
'sub optimisation' our managers reasoning was not that he wanted to save the APU's but was actually the cost of the diesel that powered the GPU's came from his business unit budget,
FRONTLINE: Flying Cheaper - Video | PBS
Although not directly related to thread, the big picture probably leads to the same result we are now seeing in Australia. Food for thought regarding "bonus driven management logic." as pointed out by Sunfish & Gas Bags. Are we heading down this path as well? Me thinks management in Australia are well down this path without realising the consequences.