Qantas has confirmed an Airbus A380 forced to turn back en route to Dallas yesterday was a replacement, after the original aircraft was grounded following an air conditioning fault.Three Qantas planes were forced to make unscheduled landings in the space of just 24 hours, but the pilots' association says it is confident the problems on the aircraft were not related.
In the most recent incident, an Airbus heading from Sydney to Dallas on the world's longest non-stop commercial flight was forced to turn back four hours into its flight after problems with toilets, seat power and in-flight entertainment.
The airline said flight QF7 returned to Sydney for "customer comfort" reasons.
"While the aircraft could have continued flying safely to Dallas, the decision was made to return to Sydney in the interests of passenger comfort on what is a long flight," the airline said in a statement.
The route was originally meant to be flown by another A380 which had earlier been forced to make an emergency landing in Perth after its air conditioning failed.
In the other incident, a Qantas flight from Perth to Karratha was turned back on Monday afternoon after a strong odour was detected.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce dismissed concerns that the turn-backs were unusual.
"There are turn-backs that happen. Thousands of them. Every year, around the globe," he said.
"Boeing say the worldwide fleet is ... one turn-back for every 9000 sectors operated. Qantas's record is one in every 18000 sectors operated. That's half of the 737 fleet."
Paul Cousins from the Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association said investigations were nonetheless underway to determine whether the incidents "are independent of each other, or whether they are a systemic issue".
"We have over 3,000 members Australia wide, and approximately half of that within the Qantas network," Mr Cousins said.
"So our ability to get that information is excellent, and we'll rely on those members to look for that information and then we'll go to direct cause."
Australian and International Pilots Association president Nathan Safe said he was confident the problems on all three planes were isolated.
"There's not too many emergencies that really required a rushed or immediate speed of light response at all," Mr Safe said.
"Generally, aeroplanes are built tough enough and with enough redundancies and all that kind of stuff that you do have some time to assess the situation."
Incidents show Qantas 'under pressure'
Transport Workers' Union national secretary Tony Sheldon said the incidents demonstrated that Qantas was "under a lot of pressure"."They [Qantas] have outsourced considerable amounts of work, both within the country and outside," Mr Sheldon said.
"They've slashed the work force to a point where they haven't got systems in place to properly deal with the issues that confront the airline.
Many passengers were unimpressed with Qantas' measures.
"We had a three-year-old that was screaming for four hours. I can imagine they were more upset at that," one said.
Another said: "They gave us a form letter. A nicely printed form letter. Nothing personalised. There was not a lot of sympathy or empathy last night."
Passengers also took to social media to express their frustration at the delays.
"My favourite part of that flight was when @Qantas couldn't flush the toilets and cabin electrics wouldn't work," tweeted one passenger on QF7.
Another tweeted: "Sorry @Qantas, this flight was painful. But your flight crew were amazing."
The Sydney to Dallas flight is regarded as the longest non-stop commercial flight in the world, with passengers typically spending more than 15 hours in the air.
The company said customers who did not live in Sydney had been booked into hotels, and travellers had been rebooked onto another flight departing this morning.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-08/third-qantas-plane-turned-around-within-24-hours/5953160