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Not an aviation nerd, but had a local one explain a particular A380 issue to me. About once a month the main daily SYD/MEL to LAX routes had to turn around and

Not an aviation nerd, but had a local one explain a particular A380 issue to me. About once a month the main daily SYD/MEL to LAX routes had to turn around and it was pretty much always the Rolls Royce engine (one of two engine manufacturers for redundancy). And then it started happening on the other engine as well. Can't confirm the frequency, but when I was talking to a Qantas crew member about this over a year ago he nodded and said they won't be purchasing any new A380s. He said he felt they were bought for the marketing "me too" reason more than anything else. EDIT: That being said I loved the A380, I frequently flew premium economy intl. on it and even if you could wrangle the small (something like 20 row?) economy section upstairs it felt less like cattle class.

jen729w 8y ago
The front row — only 2 seats wide — of that upstairs economy section is a great little place to travel with a partner. The small cabin makes it feel much more premium.
grkvlt 8y ago
That doesn't sound right (well, Qantas did have RR engine trouble, as did all RR engined A380s) as all A380 fleets have four of the same type/manufacturer of engine (RR or GE, depending on the airline) and it will be common across all the planes in the fleet. It doesn't make sense to have to double up on maintenance costs, equipment and engineering staff with two types, plus the added risk of a GE bolt/whatever accidentally fitted to a RR engine causing an accident...