Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd may not be able to put all of its Airbus SE A350 aircraft back into service as quickly as hoped due a spare parts shortage, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The carrier has taken several jets out of service in recent days after an engine component failure on one of its A350 aircraft forced a flight bound for Zurich to return to Hong Kong late on Monday. That triggered a precautionary inspection of the engines on Cathay’s entire A350 fleet of 48 jets. Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is the sole engine maker for the Airbus A350.

Of the 48 planes that were inspected, 15 were found to need a new fuel hose component, the person said, declining to be identified because they are not authorised to speak publicly. The airline said on Wednesday that the faulty component was a fuel line, confirming an earlier Bloomberg report about checks around deformed or degraded lines.

Engineers were asked to make specific checks to the flexible hoses supplying fuel to the engine for abnormalities, deformation, kinks, bulges or degradation.

Cathay also Wednesday said an additional 22 flights will be cut from Thursday through Saturday, bringing the total number of canceled services to 90. There shouldn’t be any more flights disrupted, it added.

The airline’s head of operations and service delivery, Alex McGowan, said it 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.”

Of the 15 A350s that were found to need a replacement hose, six have been repaired and are back in service, while nine are expected to return to the skies by Saturday, Cathay said.

However according to the person familiar with the matter, there’s still some doubt about whether that time frame can be met.

Supply chain snarls, both from a labor and parts perspective, have plagued the aviation industry since Covid, forcing planemakers Airbus and Boeing Co to seriously dial back production schedules. Engines, and their complex make up of highly specialized and precision parts, have become a particular flashpoint.

Even before Cathay’s discovery, the Rolls-Royce engine on the A350, particularly for the larger -1000 variant of the plane, had faced criticism from some airlines. Emirates has refused to order the model in the large numbers it previously planned, with President Tim Clark calling the engines’ power plant “defective”, because of its high maintenance requirements in harsh climates like Dubai.

Rolls-Royce previously suffered big issues on its Trent 1000 model that powers the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. While Rolls says the model is now greatly improved, the problems weighed heavily on its market position, and now GE commands an insurmountable lead on that plane. Even British Airways recently switched to the US manufacturer for its 787 planes, showing how economic calculus can trump any national allegiance airlines might have with their local supplier.

Many smaller single-aisle Airbus A320neo jets, which are powered by Pratt & Whitney engines, have suffered glitches too, temporarily grounding some of the workhorse fleet.

Supply chain constraints in the building of new jets has also worsened in recent years as planes that are already flying suck up extra parts after finding problems in service. Airlines themselves typically don’t keep a lot of spare parts on hand in order to keep costs lean. 

  - Bloomberg