Sept. 4 (UPI) — Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways said Wednesday its Airbus A350 fleet will fully resume operations by Saturday.
The airline said in an update that inspections conducted after it paused flights of the aircraft on Tuesday showed that 15 jets had engine fuel line issues.
Of those 15, six have already had the fuel lines replaced and are cleared to resume service and the remaining nine will be back in service by Saturday, according to Cathay Pacific.
While the jets are being repaired, Cathay Pacific said it expects 11 more regional return flights to be canceled Sept. 5-7, bringing the total of canceled regional return flights to 45.
“This was a significant situation for Cathay to manage as the engine component failure was the first of its type to occur on any A350 aircraft anywhere in the world,” said Chief Operations and Service Delivery Officer Alex McGowan.
He added that conducting thorough inspections and maintenance of all its A350 aircraft in such a short time has been challenging.
McGowan apologized to Pacific Cathay customers whose travel plans were impacted.
The airline’s entire fleet of 48 Airbus A350s was grounded Tuesday after a part in the Rolls Royce engine of one jet failed while in flight to Zurich Tuesday. The plane landed safely after aborting the flight to Zurich, returning to Hong Kong.
