Virgin Australia and Air New Zealand have both rubbished rumours that their aircraft sustained damage by flying through plumes of ash over Australia and the Tasman this week.
A Virgin Australia spokesman told Fairfax newspapers the airline had added an extra layer of precautionary checks on aircraft and engines since the arrival of the ash cloud.
“To date we’ve found absolutely no evidence of ash on any of our aircraft,” he said.
“It’s kind of hard to get ash damage when you’re not flying through ash.”
Air New Zealand responded forcefully to “malicious rumours†about ash damage to its jets.
In a statement, Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe said while his airline worked to maintain safe operations, rumours were being spread.
“Behind the scenes we were constantly battling a series of malicious rumours that emerged from the Australian market and fed to media, suggesting that Air New Zealand had six aircraft in the hangar with ash damage, an aircraft grounded in Australia with ash damage and an aircraft requiring a nose cone replacement as a result of ash damage,” he explained. 

“All these stories were a complete fiction and I was left scratching my head as to where these false rumours were coming from.”
In a response to reported comments by Qantas chief Alan Joyce about the ash cloud situation and the decision by Qantas to ground flights, Fyfe said: “What Alan failed to mention was that Qantas was very happy to transfer thousands of its customers on to Air New Zealand and other airlines’ services, which seems a strange thing to do for your customers if you have concerns about the safety of the airspace.”
By TravelMole Australia
