"Even the airplane itself ultimately survived: after a marathon repair that lasted 535 days and cost $139 million, the A380 Nancy-Bird Walton triumphantly returned to the skies in 2012."
This quote amazes me. My understanding is that Airbus, Qantas, and probably Rolls Royce were willing to spend this much because it meant that the incident was not a "hull loss" and therefore not as bad a hit to reputation and safety statistics. Does anyone know if that's true?
Qantas has never had a hull loss in the jet age. Its last fatal accident was with a 10-passenger propeller plane, back in 1951. It is widely regarded as the world's safest airline.
Being able to keep this "never lost a jetliner" / "no accident we couldn't fly away from in 75 years" marketing claim is worth a lot. It's also why Qantas Flight 1 (1999, runway overrun of a 747-400, no significant injuries), despite initially being a write-off, was repaired for over AU$100M and returned to service.
A new A380 is more expensive (rule of thumb half of official list price, so about $220 million), and airlines were not talking about retiring A380s yet at the time. So it even made economic sense.
The plane has since had a cabin upgrade and is still expected to operate at least until 2028. It’s operating SIN-LHR right now as I write this, currently flying over Azerbaijan.
One thing that might be taken into account is the delay between ordering a plane, and the delivery (can take up to 10 years), so 1.5 years and 139$ million is worth investing into, to keep revenue flowing earlier.
Comments
"Even the airplane itself ultimately survived: after a marathon repair that lasted 535 days and cost $139 million, the A380 Nancy-Bird Walton triumphantly returned to the skies in 2012."
This quote amazes me. My understanding is that Airbus, Qantas, and probably Rolls Royce were willing to spend this much because it meant that the incident was not a "hull loss" and therefore not as bad a hit to reputation and safety statistics. Does anyone know if that's true?
Qantas has never had a hull loss in the jet age. Its last fatal accident was with a 10-passenger propeller plane, back in 1951. It is widely regarded as the world's safest airline.
Being able to keep this "never lost a jetliner" / "no accident we couldn't fly away from in 75 years" marketing claim is worth a lot. It's also why Qantas Flight 1 (1999, runway overrun of a 747-400, no significant injuries), despite initially being a write-off, was repaired for over AU$100M and returned to service.
A new A380 is more expensive (rule of thumb half of official list price, so about $220 million), and airlines were not talking about retiring A380s yet at the time. So it even made economic sense.
The plane has since had a cabin upgrade and is still expected to operate at least until 2028. It’s operating SIN-LHR right now as I write this, currently flying over Azerbaijan.
One thing that might be taken into account is the delay between ordering a plane, and the delivery (can take up to 10 years), so 1.5 years and 139$ million is worth investing into, to keep revenue flowing earlier.
They paid an estimated $300M per aircraft, so even a $139M repair bill is worth it