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The repair bill for Qantas’s A380 VH-OQA which suffered an uncontained engine failure near Singapore on November 4 is likely to approach US$70m (A$72.7m), according to an insurance company.
In a monthly industry update, US based Aon Corp says damage caused by the failure “has been valued at just under $US70 million as a result of the significant damage to (the) engine and aircraft wing.”
Qantas has so far declined to put a figure on the wider costs (including foregone revenue) from the three week A380 grounding.
“It’s still ongoing at the moment in terms of the cost because while we’ve got two of the A380s now back in the air and two of the aircraft are flying, we still have four aircraft that we’re working to get back into service and we also have restrictions on where we’re flying the aircraft voluntarily imposed, so the bill is still mounting and when we have a firm number about what that will cost we will communicate that,” CEO Alan Joyce told the ABC’s Inside Business program in an interview which aired on the weekend.
The first A380 returned to service on November 27, operating an incident-free QF31 service to Singapore and London.
