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Qantas problems threaten holidays

Qantas and Singapore Airlines are desperately trying to find planes and reschedule timetables for the busy Christmas season after revelations that the A380 superjumbos may be grounded for far longer than expected.

The news came as Qantas had another setback yesterday when a 747 flight from Sydney to Buenos Aires turned back because of an electrical problem.

Airbus said yesterday that Singapore Airlines might have to replace up to 20 of the Trent 900 engines in its fleet of 11 A380s and Qantas 14 engines on its fleet of six A380s.

The giant aircraft manufacturer revealed on Friday that new Rolls-Royce engines had a modification that rectified the oil leak that caused the catastrophic explosion on Qantas QF32 after take-off from Singapore on November 4.

Airbus has already offered to fly some engines out from the A380 production line to help Qantas, but with 34 new engines now required it may be February at least before the total A380 fleet is back in the air.

Both airlines say it is too early to access the full impact of the continued A380s problems on Christmas traffic but usually all flights are near full from December 15 through to January 5.

Some flights from Perth will be affected, with the major problems being out of Singapore to Europe and on flights to the US.

Qantas has already replaced some 303-seat A330 services with 265-seat 767s on flights to Asian ports and is chartering aircraft from British Airways.

The A330s are replacing 400-seat 747s that have been moved on to 470-seat A380 routes.

Qantas is due to get three more A380s before Christmas, including one before the end of the month, and they all have the upgraded Trent 972 engine.

However, the airline also wants to retire some older 747s as the A380s enter service, placing a strain on capacity.

The A380 program is over two years late and this has placed pressure on Qantas maintenance keeping the 747s up to the airline's standards.

In some cases, critical structural items such as undercarriages are close to the end of their cycles and hours and need to be replaced, which is time-consuming and costly.

Singapore Airlines spokesman Nicholas Ionides said the airline was "maintaining a full flight schedule, albeit with a switch in aircraft type to smaller 747-400s and 777s for some flights".