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Passengers stranded by A380 glitch
Scott Rochfort
February 19, 2008 – 1:25PM
Singapore Airlines has encountered its first major technical
glitch with its four-month-old A380 super
jumbo, which forced it to cancel a flight from Singapore to Sydney
last night leaving 70 passengers stranded without a hotel room.
The airline has confirmed it was forced to ground the jet
overnight due to a problem with a fuel pump.
“It was a difficult delay. A problem presented with a fuel pump,
and this is the sort of problem that doesn’t show till engine
start-up,’’ said the airline’s head of corporate affairs Stephen
Forshaw.
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information.
But Mr Forshaw said the problem which does “occur from time to
time with aircraft generally’’ was exacerbated when a replacement
pump did not solve the glitch.
Given the Singapore Air’s second A380 was
undergoing maintance, Mr Forshaw said the flight had to be replaced
with a Boeing 747-400.
“Obviously, a 747-400 can’t carry as many passengers as an
A380, so we’ve had to transfer around 70
passengers to alternative flights today,’’ he confirmed via an
email.
According to Changi Airport’s web site the 747 replacement
flight left 9 hours late.
“We’re very sorry for the inconvenience caused to customers by
the long delay, and especially the nature of it, with a lack of
certain departure time,’’ said Mr Forshaw.
“Given the time of night, we explored transferring all customers
to hotels till the defect was repaired, to allow them to get some
rest.
“Unfortunately, with the Singapore Airshow on this week, there
were not sufficient hotel rooms to be able to accommodate those
affected,’’ he said.
Mr Forshaw was the delay was ``most unfortunate’’ given the high
reliability of the world’s largest passenger jet since its entry
into service last October.
Last month, Airbus boast the A380
delivered to Singapore Air last October had been operating between
Sydney and Singapore ``around 15 hours per day with a 100 per cent
technical reliability’’.
Singapore Air introduced its second A380
on the route in mid-January. Singapore Air’s morning departure from
Sydney only left 20 minutes late this morning, given the
replacement 747 had enough seats to carry the ``booked load’’.
The jet encountered its first mishap last month when it rolled
off the tarmac onto a glass verge at Singapore’s Changi Airport
after coming lose from a tow truck.