Qantas 'not meeting own safety benchmarks'

The civil aviation watchdog has told Qantas to improve its aircraft maintenance systems after a series of problems with its planes.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) took a closer look at the national carrier after the incidents, including an emergency landing in Manila when an oxygen tank exploded mid-flight.

"CASA wants Qantas to make a range of improvements to the way it manages and delivers aircraft maintenance following a special review carried out by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority,'' CASA said.

"CASA has told the airline to produce a plan to address deficiencies in meeting some of its own maintenance performance targets.

"At the same time Qantas will examine whether the existing lines of authority and control over maintenance within the airline are delivering the best possible outcomes.''

The authority said it would do two additional audits on maintenance.

The first would be a full maintenance audit of one aircraft of each major aircraft type in the Qantas fleet, a 747-400, 737-400 and 767-300.

"This will involve checking all maintenance documentation for each of these aircraft to see it has been completed, as well as physically examining the aircraft on the ground.

"The second audit will focus on the effectiveness of Qantas maintenance systems in managing and implementing airworthiness directives.

"This will identify any weaknesses in Qantas maintenance systems in relation to managing the ongoing airworthiness of its aircraft.''

Unions have repeatedly criticised Qantas for outsourcing maintenance internationally.

Their criticism was given prominence after the Manila incident when the oxygen tank exploded blowing a hole in the plane's fuselage.

Canberra Deputy chief executive officer of CASA operations Mick Quinn said the authority had found "emerging problems''.

"CASA has looked carefully at the Qantas maintenance systems and performance and uncovered signs of emerging problems, he said.

"The review found maintenance performance within Qantas is showing some adverse trends and is now below the airline's own benchmarks.''

Mr Quinn was keen to highlight that CASA's initial inquiry did not find any trends or links between safety incidents.

"There has been no increase in the rate of incidents and over more than a year the number of monthly air safety incident reports was about the same,'' Mr Quinn said.

National AMWU secretary Dave Oliver said the CASA report should serve as a "wake up call" for Qantas, and said the airline must guarantee no more maintenance jobs will be lost or sent offshore.

"We've sought on many occasions guarantees that work would not be sent offshore or contracted out and we are yet to see such guarantees," he said.

"(Qantas must) ... have a long, hard look at their maintenance operations and start giving the guarantees that are needed in respect of maintaining a strong, viable, high-quality engineering and maintenance facility that has given them the reputation of being the safest airline in the world."
He accused Qantas of focusing more on cost-cutting than the quality of its maintenance.
"When you start outsourcing work you lose control of your quality and in the airline industry, when we're talking about quality obviously we are talking about safety as well."

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon passed much of the blame for maintenance problems on to industrial action by engineers.

"As we have publicly acknowledged, certain key performance indicators and despatch reliability have been significantly impacted by the industrial dispute between Qantas and the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers' Association over past months," he said.

He stressed that CASA had found no link between any two incidents.

Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese backed CASA's findings.

"This ongoing action sends a signal to the aviation industry, and to the travelling public, that CASA and Qantas are very serious about maintaining Australia's high safety standards," Mr Albanese told parliament.

Source: Daily Telegraph

Open a printer friendly version of this article