BigDUSA

Another sad day for the Airbus A380. So many news stories about all the problems with this plane.

WASHINGTON – Nobody trains for chaos like this. Out the pilots' left window, far above the ocean, an engine as big as a bus had disintegrated, blasting shrapnel holes in the superjumbo's wing. And now an overwhelming flood of computer alarms was warning the pilots that critical systems might be failing. Two weeks after the pilots somehow landed their Qantas jetliner and its 450 passengers, their two-hour cockpit drama was described Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press by the vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association. "The amount of failures is unprecedented," said Richard Woodward, a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots. "There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong." But it did. Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. Would the pilots still be able to fly the seven-story-tall plane? The wing's forward spar — one of the beams that attaches it to the plane — was damaged as well. And the wing's two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said. The electrical power problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail heavy. That may have posed the greatest risk, safety experts said. If the plane got too far out of balance, the Singapore-to-Sydney jetliner would lose lift, stall and crash. And then there was that incredible stream of computer messages, 54 in all, alerting the pilots to system failures or warning of impending failures. One warned that a ram air turbine — a backup power supply — was about to deploy, although that never did happen, Woodward said. The message was especially worrisome because the system deploys only when main power systems are lost. The smaller backup supply is able only to power vital aircraft systems. That's "the last thing you need in that kind of situation," he said. The pilots watched as computer screens filled, only to be replaced by new screenfuls of warnings, he said. "I don't think any crew in the world would have been trained to deal with the amount of different issues this crew faced," Woodward said. As luck would have it, there were five experienced pilots — including three captains — aboard the plane. The flight's captain, Richard de Crespigny, was being given his annual check ride — a test of his piloting skills — by another captain. That man was himself being evaluated by a third captain. There were also first and second officers, part of the normal three-pilot team. In all, the crew had over 100 years of flying experience. De Crespigny concentrated on flying the plane, while the others dealt with the computer alarms and made announcements to the giant planeload of passengers, some of whom said they were frantically pointing to flames streaming from the engine. Working flat out, it took 50 minutes for the pilots work through all of the messages. When pilots receive safety warnings, they are supposed to check the airline's operating manual and implement specific procedures. But with so many warnings, the Qantas pilots had to sort through and prioritize the most serious problems first. It's likely that for some of the problems there were no procedures because no airline anticipates so many things going wrong at once, John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member said. Attention since the Nov. 4 incident has focused on the Airbus 380's damaged Rolls Royce engine. As many as half of the 80 engines that power A380s, the world's largest jetliners, may need to be replaced, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said Thursday. That raises the possibility of shortages that could delay future deliveries of the superjumbo. Qantas has grounded its fleet of six A380s. The drama two weeks ago still wasn't over when the pilots finally got the plane back to Singapore and the runway was in sight. Wing flaps that are used to slow the plane were inoperable. So were the landing gear doors. The pilots used gravity to lower the gear. Brake temperatures reached over 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit during the landing, causing several flat tires. If fuel leaking from the damaged wing had hit the brakes, it could have caused a fire. The pilots allowed the plane to roll almost to the end of the runway so it would be close to fire trucks that could put foam on the brakes and undercarriage. Among the other issues Woodward said the pilots faced: • When the engine failed it caught fire, but the fire suppression system was difficult to deploy. • An electrical bus — a connection between electrical devices — on the left wing failed. The plane was designed so that a second bus on the same wing or the two buses on the opposite wing would pick up the load. That didn't happen. Actually, Woodward praised the plane, saying it was a testament to its strength that it was able to continue to fly relatively well despite all the problems. But he also said it's likely reconsideration will be given to the design and location electrical wiring in the wings. Airplanes are supposed to be designed with redundancy so that if one part or system fails, there is still another to perform the same function. That didn't always happen in this case, safety experts say. "The circumstances around this accident will certainly cause the regulatory authorities to take a long and hard look at a number of certification issues," said Goglia, the former National Transportation Safety Board member and an expert on aircraft maintenance. "What we have got to ensure is that systems are separated so that no single point of failure can damage a system completely," Woodward said. "In this situation the wiring in the leading edge of the wing was cut. That lost multiple systems." However, Michael Barr, who teaches aviation safety at the University of Southern California, said a commercial plane can't be designed with certainty to withstand a spray of shrapnel, which can inflict damage anywhere. The proper focus, he said, should be on determining what caused the engine to fail and fixing that problem. All the experts were agreed on one point. "It must have been an exciting time on that flight deck," Barr said drily. "It's not something you'd ever want to try again." ___ Associated Press writers Rohan Sullivan in Sydney, Greg Keller in Paris and Joshua Freed in Minneapolis contributed to this report. QUOTE

Summary The loss-making Airbus A380 is still proving a miserable headache for Air France, an airline that has spent more money tending to the airplane on the ground than it has made using it in the air. Analysis Two months into service with Air France and four grounded flights later, the A380s reputation, like its weak financial position is in tatters. The irony of this recent grounding is that the airplane was being ferried back to Paris due to a technical fault, but then developed another glitch before returning back to John F Kennedy International Airport. Qantas, Emirates and Singapore Airlines have also suffered fuel system problems that have grounded one or more of their A380s in the last year. While it is not uncommon for new airplanes to have teething problems after entry into service, the frenetic pace of electronic system failures that have forced the grounding of the A380 poses questions about the quality and maturity of the airplanes that have thus far been delivered. We must remember that these are the first A380s that were wired up all incorrectly and had painstaking man-hours spent re-wiring and reconfiguring all of the electronic systems on board before refurbishing the cabins prior to customer delivery. It’s bad enough the A380 will never make money for Airbus, even worse when airlines are doing away with first class cabins and relying on low yield passengers for traffic growth – the predicament the A380 is in is horrendous, at best. With the WTO ruling also pummelling the entire financial ethos for this, the biggest commercial airplane development disaster the world has ever seen, the quicker Airbus can complete and deliver the A380 backlog and ease the monetary and resource drain, the better. In a decade it has only sold 202 units, almost all in loss-lead deals to secure sales – market rejection of this airplane could not be any clearer. No one is seeking early A380 deliveries. Everyone who drunk the air show cool-aid is deferring their commitments to it. It remains an airplane as incompatible with air travel trends today as it was when it was launched. Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.This author consults with leading institutions through GLGQuestions for the authorEngage this author or other Energy & Industrials experts Contributed by a Member of the GLG Energy & Industrials Councils QUOTE

SYDNEY – Up to half of the Rolls-Royce engines of the type that disintegrated on an Airbus superjumbo this month may need to be replaced by the three carriers that use them, the Qantas chief executive said Thursday. Australia's Qantas, Singapore Airlines and Germany's Lufthansa fly A380s powered by four giant Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, with a total of 80 engines on 20 planes. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told reporters on Thursday that Rolls-Royce had indicated that the number of engines that needed to be replaced was "40 engines worldwide." "That's what they think they'll have to change," he said. "Rolls-Royce are still working through the criteria for which engines need to be changed," Joyce said one the sidelines of an event in Sydney unrelated to the A380 incident. He said that 14 of the 24 engines on Qantas planes may have to be replaced. It was not clear what impact the engine replacements would have on future A380 deliveries, but it raises the prospect of delays in filling orders. London-based Rolls-Royce declined to comment. The engine maker's shares were down 0.2 percent at 598.5 pence in the first hour of trading on the London Stock Exchange. One of the Trent 900s on a Qantas superjumbo caught fire and blew apart shortly after takeoff from Singapore on Nov. 4, in what experts say was the most serious safety incident for the world's newest and largest passenger plane. The Sydney-bound flight returned safely to Singapore where it made an emergency landing. Investigators say leaking oil caught fire in the Qantas engine on Nov. 4 and heated metal parts, causing them to disintegrate. Experts say chunks of flying metal cut hydraulics and an engine-control line in the wing of the A380, causing the pilots to lose control of the second engine and some of the flaps on the damaged wing in a situation far more serious than originally portrayed by Qantas. The European air-safety regulator last week issued an urgent order requiring all operators of Trent 900 engines to conduct repeated inspections of several parts, including the oil service tubes, to ensure there was no "abnormal" leakage. If any such leaks are found, the airlines are prohibited from using the engines. All six of Qantas' A380s have been grounded while extensive safety checks and fixes are carried out, and the airline says three Trent 900 engines have been removed in addition to the one that blew out. Singapore Airlines, with 11 A380s, and Lufthansa, with three, briefly grounded some of their planes after the Qantas scare but returned almost all of them to service after conducting safety checks. Singapore Airlines has said it replaced three Trent 900s. Lufthansa replaced one but said the reason was unrelated to the Qantas blowout. The other airlines that fly A380s, Dubai's Emirates and Air France, use engines built by Engine Alliance, a 50/50 joint venture between GE Aircraft Engines and Pratt & Whitney. Joyce reiterated that Qantas would not be putting its A380s back into service until the airline was satisfied they were safe to fly. "We'll have a daily dialogue with Rolls-Royce to determine which engines actually need to be taken off," he said. "We're hoping to understand precisely which engines need to be replaced and therefore we can have a firm timeline for when they will be back in the air, but we are still a few days away from that." Rolls-Royce has been criticized for not providing enough detail on how it is resolving the Trent 900 problem. The London-based company has said the problem was linked to an unspecified single part and has outlined a plan of action to replace it. Last Friday, Rolls-Royce said it would be replacing modules, or sections of linked parts, aboard Trent 900 engines that were found to have oil leaks. But the company has said little about how long that process will take and if it will affect the delivery of new A380s to existing and new airline customers. It has not responded to reports that entire engines may need to be replaced or that engines currently in production may be diverted to existing customers with problem engines. Both issues raise the prospect of delays to the delivery of new planes. Rolls-Royce had been scheduled to hold a news conference at a major biennial air show in the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai in Wednesday, but canceled it, without giving a reason. Joyce said Rolls-Royce had ordered modifications on parts of the Trent 900 engines and indicated it had done so before the Nov. 4 incident. But there was no early indication to Qantas that the modification was significant. "Modifications are made to engines ... all the time," he said. "Rolls-Royce have gone and modified certain parts of this engine." "If this was significant and was known to be significant, we would have liked to have known about that," he said. "We and Airbus weren't aware of it. "But it depends on what the purpose of modifications were for," Joyce added. "It doesn't look like it's a significant modification, but it is a modification that has an impact on how the engines are performing. And it is a modification that indicates whether you are going to have a problem or not with the engine." Airbus has said new Trent 900s coming off the production line should not have the oil leak problem, but says the changes were ordered after the Qantas incident. It has denied an Australian newspaper's report that an Airbus executive said Rolls-Royce started making changes to some versions of the engine before Nov. 4. Rolls-Royce has not commented. Joyce said the normal procedure for nonurgent modifications ordered by an engine manufacturer is to make the change when the engine is next brought in for routine maintenance. "If this incident hadn't occurred, eventually all these engines would have had this modification," he said. "Now, because it is an indicator, we are not taking any risks. We're taking the engines off and making sure this modification is in place before the engines are put back on the aircraft." ___ Associated Press Writer Christopher Bodeen in Zhuhai, China, and Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report. QUOTE .

Has anyone seen a hotel employee testing the water or adding chlorine to the water?

This must be costing Qantas BIG money to have so many planes out of service for so long?

Has Qantas started flying The A380 again? Any updates?

We have three quality airlines and they all ignored maintenance bulletins on a new series of engines? I could go along with one airline with shoddy maintenance practices but three all at the same time. I don't think so.

LONDON – An Airbus executive said Friday that Rolls-Royce has identified a faulty bearing box as the cause of the oil leak problem implicated in the midair disintegration of an engine on one of the world's largest airliners, an Australian newspaper reported. Airbus Chief Operating Officer John Leahy told reporters in Sydney that Rolls-Royce had at some point fixed the bearing box on newer versions of the massive Trent 900 engine, a model designed for the massive A380 superjumbo. He said Rolls was now fixing it on older versions. The Herald Sun reported his comments on its website. His comments did not address why Rolls-Royce had not fixed the bearing box in older versions of the engine. Airbus did not elaborate and Rolls-Royce declined to comment on his remarks. The box in question contains the metal ball bearings that allow movement of the drive shaft that spins the turbines inside jet engines. Investigators have said that leaking oil caused a fire in the engine of a Qantas A380 that heated metal parts and made the motor disintegrate over Indonesia last week, sending shrapnel into the wing and cutting vital safety systems before the jetliner landed safely in Singapore. They have focused on broken pieces of the engine's heavy turbine disc, a plate that holds the turbine blades that move air through the motor. Engines on the A380 malfunctioned four times before the disintegration on the flight from Singapore to Sydney. All of the planes landed safely. The problems dating to 2008 led to two warnings for airlines to check parts of the Trent 900. Three of the four problems centered on the turbines or oil system. Rolls-Royce Group PLC said in an update to investors Friday that the disintegration of the Qantas engine resulted from a problem in a specific component in the Trent 900, but it did not provide details. "The failure was confined to a specific component in the turbine area of the engine. This caused an oil fire, which led to the release of the intermediate pressure turbine disc," Rolls-Royce said. The statement supports a report from the European Aviation Safety Agency, which issued an emergency order Thursday requiring airlines to re-examine their Trent 900s and ground any planes with suspicious leaks. Leahy said the new models of the Trent 900 had been redesigned to eliminate the problem of excess oil causing turbine fires. He said that Rolls-Royce was retrofitting the older versions with new parts to stop the oil leaks and computer software that would shut down an engine with leaking oil before it was put at risk of disintegration. "In the future the computer will have software that can identify a problem at the outset and it will shut down an engine before a turbine disc can go out of control and come apart," Leahy told the Herald Sun. Leaks or oil stains have been discovered on six of the total of twenty A380s operated by Qantas, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines that use the Trent 900, a technologically advanced model designed to be lighter, quieter and more efficient than older engines. Qantas and Singapore Airlines have grounded nine of the world's largest airliner between them while Germany's Lufthansa has already replaced an engine on one of its A380s. Rolls-Royce's chief executive said the company will be replacing the relevant part to enable its customers to bring the whole fleet back into service. Airbus will take Rolls-Royce engines off the final assembly line in Toulouse, France, and send them to Qantas "so we can get Qantas back up and flying," the Airbus press office said. The disintegration on the Qantas A380 was far more serious than the airline has implied in its public statements, however, experts said. Damage from engine shrapnel to the wing over the engine occurred very close to the wing's front spar, one of two support beams in the wing that attach the wing to the plane, said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board and an expert on airline maintenance. If the shrapnel had hit the spar it could possibly have weakened the spar and even have caused the wing to fall off, he said. As it was, the shrapnel appears to have damaged electrical cables and hydraulic lines inside the wing, Goglia said. Pilots were unable to close the landing gear doors, an indication of hydraulic damage, and had difficulty shutting down the engine next to the engine that disintegrated, an indication of an electrical problem, he said. The A380 has four engines. Photos and video of the incident and its aftermath show the shrapnel clearly ruptured a hydraulic line and an electric line in the wing, cutting off the pilots' control of half the brake flaps and the remaining engine on the affected wing, along with the door of the landing-gear compartment, said Joerg Handwerg, a spokesman for the pilots' union for Lufthansa. In its trading update Friday, London-based Rolls-Royce said the incident will cause full year profit growth "to be slightly lower than previously guided," but it also said that the company's other operations will help to offset any losses. Back in July, the company said that its underlying profits would grow by 4-5 percent compared to 2009. Shares in the company rose after the update — a signal that investors are happy to see a definitive statement after days of silence from the world's second-biggest engine maker behind General Electric and one of the last globally important industrial manufacturing companies in Britain. Rolls-Royce shares were up 4 percent at 607.5 pence ($9.74) in midmorning trade on the London Stock Exchange. Handwerg said that minor problems are routine for any jet engine, but it is possible that the issues were an indication that regulators did not adequately check the engine before approving it for commercial use. "When you see we have a problem with not just one of these engines but several then it points towards that we have a problem in the certification process," Handwerg said. ___ Associated Press Reporters Michael Weissenstein in London and Joan Lowy in Washington contributed to this report. QUOTE Damn lucky the wing didn't fall off when the Rolls Royce engine exploded.

Damn shame that Boeing can't depend on European companies to live up to the contracts they signed.

I agree if you count on the Italians and British sub contractor's to deliver components on time and within specifications. It's a losing proposition.

Your right given the very small number of A380 in service and they have experienced four problems with the Rolls Royce engines. Like you say this is a major problem.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Aircraft manufacturer Airbus (EAD.PA) has not had any orders canceled since engine problems arose with the A380 jumbo jet last week, the company's Chief Executive Tom Enders said on Wednesday. Speaking in Berlin, Enders said he was confident that the builder of the jet's engines, Rolls Royce (RR.L), would ensure there would be no repeat of the problems. There is no reason to doubt the safety of the aeroplane, he added. "We haven't had any orders called off, there isn't any kind of discussion about cancellations going on," Enders said after meeting German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle. "There is no reason to doubt the safety of the aircraft." Nevertheless, Enders described the problems as a "serious incident," adding that Airbus wanted to help airlines "as far as possible with engines that we have at our disposal." Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) said on Wednesday it would replace engines on three of its A380 planes after finding oil stains on them, nearly a week after Australia's Qantas (QAN.AX) grounded its A380 fleet over an engine failure. Qantas's six A380s have been grounded since Thursday, when a Rolls-Royce (RR.L) engine partly disintegrated mid-flight, forcing the fully laden A380 to make an emergency landing in the biggest incident to date for the world's largest passenger jet. Probes into that incident have focused on oil leaks inside the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, the same model used to power Singapore Airlines' and German Lufthansa's (LHAG.DE) A380 fleet. Lufthansa said on Wednesday its A380 flights were on schedule. Enders said Rolls-Royce was working hard to investigate what exactly had happened. "I have every confidence in Rolls-Royce that they will quickly be able to analyze what happened and take measures relating to the production of these engines which will prevent such incidents occurring any more," Enders said. (Writing by Brian Rohan and Dave Graham; editing by Elaine Hardcastle) QUOTE

When I make my reservation. I always book exit row. Plenty of legroom and when I want to stand no problem.

Only seven out of twenty engines are having 'problems'. Yeah your soo right seven out of twenty is hardly a large percentage

It's sad that Rolls Royce has so many engine problems with so few engines built for the A380.

Once again you continue with your flawed analysis. So be it. BTW you forgot to add passenger interest in not being injured or killed by a Rolls Royce engine blowing apart.

I'm in town from November 27 - December 14.

SYDNEY – Europe's air safety regulator said Thursday an oil fire may have caused an engine turbine failure on a Qantas superjumbo, and issued an emergency order requiring airlines to re-examine that type of Rolls-Royce engine and ground any planes with suspicious leaks. The order by the European Aviation Safety Authority backed earlier indications from investigators that they suspect a turbine disc was the cause of last week's engine failure on the Airbus A380, but was the first official mention of an oil fire preceding the engine's disintegration. The A380 engine failure shortly after takeoff from Singapore on Nov. 4 has raised concerns over the safety of the world's biggest passenger airplane three years after its debut. The failure sent shrapnel slicing through the plane's wing and hurtling down over an Indonesian island before pilots made a safe emergency landing with 466 passengers and crew aboard. Qantas said this week it found small oil leaks on Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines on three of its other Airbus A380s during tests after the Nov. 4 incident. The airline, Australia's national carrier, said Thursday it was keeping its six A380s grounded until further checks were completed — extending an earlier deadline. Singapore Airlines on Wednesday grounded three of its 11 A380s after checks prompted by the Qantas incident revealed what the company called oil stains in the Trent 900 engines. Lufthansa also uses the A380-Trent 900 combination, but said on Wednesday its checks had not turned up anything untoward. The European regulator said in a new "emergency airworthiness directive" posted on its website Thursday that airlines using Trent 900 engines should conduct "repetitive inspections" of them. Twenty planes operated by Qantas, Germany's Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines use the Trent 900 engines. Nine have been grounded — six Qantas and three Singapore Airlines. EASA said airlines should check several parts of the engines, including the oil service tubes, to ensure there is no "abnormal" leakage. If any such leaks are found, the airlines are prohibited from using the engines. The directive was issued in response to the Qantas engine failure. EASA said an analysis of the investigation into the incident so far "shows that an oil fire" in part of the engine "may have caused the failure" of the engine's intermediate pressure turbine disc. "This condition, if not detected, could ultimately result in uncontained engine failure potentially leading to damage to the aeroplane and hazards to persons or property on the ground," the directive said. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is taking the lead in the investigation, has focused on a mangled section of a shattered turbine disc that was recovered from the stricken plane. It has been sent to Britain for testing, with investigators coordinating with Rolls-Royce, the bureau says. Airworthiness directives are issued by the European agency to advise airlines about extra inspections or repairs needed to deal with potential problems on planes, and are relatively common occurrences covering many different types of planes and engines. However, those classified as emergency directives are unusual, said Jason Middleton, an aviation professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. William Voss, head of the Flight Safety Foundation based in Alexandria, Virginia, said the EASA directive indicated the investigation into the Qantas incident had narrowed, and EASA was highlighting the oil service tubes as the likely source of the leak so airlines could more easily inspect for the problem. "It appears the investigation has shown that oil contamination and burning in the very hot section of the engine where the energy is extracted from the fuel is a problem on that type of engine," he said. "I expect Rolls-Royce is working to fix this very quickly." The latest directive was the third one issued this year on the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. In one of those directives, the European agency warned that unusual wear to parts of the engine could cause problems in the intermediate pressure turbine — the same part of the engine identified in Thursday's directive. Too much wear could cause the turbine to move backward into a nonmoving part of the engine, the earlier directive said. That could eventually lead to an oil fire and an uncontained engine failure. Middleton said the engine parts the agency has directed airlines to check all appear to be in the same area as the damaged disc. The directive seems to confirm an oil fire erupted inside the engine, and suggests that the fire may have caused the disc to fail, Middleton said. He cautioned it's simply too soon to tell if the issues are related. Still, he said, it is intriguing. "The original (directive) does point at an area which looks to be one of interest right now," Middleton said. "There could be a connection there." Qantas spokesman Tom Woodward said the airline's checks were already complying with the new EASA order, and there had been no new discoveries of any problems. Still, engineers were conducting further tests on the three engines where oil was found, and none of the A380 fleet would return to the air for the time being, he said. "The objective is to get them back in service as soon as possible," Woodward said. "We don't want to attach a timeframe to that at this stage, because the situation is pretty fluid. The inspections are ongoing and it really depends on when our engineers are satisfied it is safe to bring them back into service." Singapore Airlines said the new directive did not mean any disruptions to its services. The airline is replacing the engines on the three A380s that had oil stains and has deployed other types of jets to fill the gaps, spokesman Nicholas Ionides said. "Singapore Airlines has been, and will be, in full compliance with the directive," Ionides said in an e-mailed statement. "Precautionary engine changes have been carried out for three engines, and we are inspecting our wider fleet in accordance with the directives set out by EASA and the recommendations from Rolls-Royce." The Qantas and Singapore incidents are not the first problems Rolls-Royce has faced with its engines. In September 2009, a Singapore Airlines A380 was forced to return to Paris mid-flight after an engine malfunction. Last August, a Lufthansa crew shut down one of its engines as a precaution before landing in Frankfurt after receiving confusing information on a cockpit indicator. QUOTE The hits just keep on comming for Rolls Royce. _

Like I said and you can quote me. You forgot to mention it's a Rolls Royce engine that failed. Sad and lame.

I guess tommie 'forgot' to mention the engine was made by Rolls Royce.

Like I said your analysis is flawed. It doesn't matter if RR could care less about my analysis. The passengers and news media care. The regulatory agencies care and lets not forget the lawyer's they care.

Smart move on Boeing's part and let's remember the 787 is still in the 'test' phase where problems are expected unlike the A380 that's in commercial service where a catastrophic engine failure is unacceptable. The passengers were very lucky that there were no injuries or deaths on board.

The problem with your analysis is the extremely small number of new RR engines in service with the A380. Large proportion of these are experiencing one problem or another. Catastrophic failure is a big bitch and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two more engines experience the same.

Singapore Air has the best economy class in the industry. Only problem with SQ is with the cheaper fares there are no frequent flier miles.