Qantas will keep its Airbus A380 fleet grounded until at least Wednesday as it focuses on whether newly discovered oil leaks may hold the clue to the catastrophic failure of the No. 2 Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine last Thursday (ATW Daily News Nov. 5).

(Corrected Version) Qantas will change out at least three Rolls-Royce Trent 900s on two Airbus A380s owing to inspections resulting from the uncontained failure on a QF A380 last Thursday (ATW Daily News, Nov. 5). ATW incorrectly reported that Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines would also change engines.

Rolls-Royce announced that Tunisair chose the Trent 700 to power three Airbus A330s in a deal valued at $200 million at list prices. Tunisair Chairman and CEO Nabil Chettaoui said the A330s "will replace our A300-600 aircraft” and allow the airline to operate new scheduled flights to North America upon delivery from Airbus in 2012.

Embraer and Republic Airways Holdings finalized an order for up to 24 Embraer 190s, plus 24 options with conversion rights to E-195s, which was announced at the Farnborough International Airshow (ATW Daily News, July 23). In July, the companies stated the deal was valued at $960 million.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told media in Sydney on Friday that the airline’s remaining five Airbus A380s could resume flying as early as Sunday if a number of engine checks are satisfactory following the uncontained failure of a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 aboard a Qantas A380 that had just taken off from Singapore on Thursday (ATW Daily News, Nov. 5).

Boeing on Wednesday announced it will begin a rotable exchange services program in support of the 787 Dreamliner, which it called the first program of its type to be developed in conjunction with entry into service of a new aircraft type. The program will provide access to a Boeing-managed inventory pool of parts available to ship to customers within 24 hours of request.

Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Co. announced the first Sukhoi Superjet production aircraft scheduled for delivery to launch customer Armavia next month took to the skies Thursday (ATW Daily News, Oct. 19). During a 3-hr. test flight, the pilot crew checked the overall engines, systems and equipment performance having confirmed the aircraft characteristics within operational range.

The three operators of Rolls-Royce Trent 900-powered Airbus A380s followed the engine manufacturer's recommendations to conduct "basic precautionary engine checks" in the wake of the uncontained failure of an engine on a Qantas A380 that had just taken off from Singapore on Thursday.