Rolls settles Qantas spat
QANTAS has settled with engine-maker Rolls-Royce over the explosion of one of its A3830 engines mid-flight last year, which forced the plane to make an emergency landing.
Rolls will pay A$95m (£62m) in damages, the Australian airline said yesterday while also calling off all legal action.
The compensation boosted Qantas’ pre-tax profit for the year ending 30 June 2011, to between A$500-550m.
Rolls-Royce, however, provided a lower figure and said in an emailed statement that total costs as a result of the incident were £56m in the 2010 financial year, with some small additional costs in 2011.
The flight incident, which occurred last November, forced an A380 jet with 469 people on board to land in Indonesia, shortly after take-off from Singapore.
Qantas and several other airlines were forced to ground their A380s, and replace some Trent 900 engines.
Rolls shares closed yesterday at 601.50p, up 0.17 per cent, while Qantas’ Australian listed shares remained at $1.83.