Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce has defended the airline’s safety record after an unprecedented day on Monday, which forced three different planes to divert or turn back mid-air.
Three planes, including two A380 super jumbos, made unscheduled landings on Monday, prompting Joyce to say that Qantas’ safety record was better than most other carriers.
“We are very confident in Qantas’ reliability, we have really low levels of turn-backs compared to most of the world’s fleets,” he said.
“We have disrupted a lot of customers, we understand that, and we do apologise for the disruptions that have been caused but our teams have been working extremely hard on making sure we minimise that.
“I think Qantas is one of the best airlines in the world at managing the disruption to our customers and ensuring it’s minimised when it does occur.”
An A380 plane en route to Dallas returned to Sydney due to a technical problem affecting seat power, and the in-flight entertainment system.
The second A380 suffered a fault with the cabin air conditioning system heading to Sydney from Dubai and diverted to Perth.
In the third incident of the day, a 737 had taken off from Perth to Karratha before turning round after a strange odour was detected in the cabin.
Qantas had denied reports of smoke in the cabin but a St John Ambulance spokesperson at Perth airport confirmed dozens of passengers had been treated for smoke inhalation.
Just hours after Joyce addressed the media, there was yet more bad news.
On Tuesday a fourth flight was forced to turn back to Hobart after a Boeing 717 plane en route to Melbourne developed a fault with an indicator light in the cockpit.
