Commenting on Cathay Pacific grounding 48 planes for checks on Monday after a Zurich-bound flight had to return to the city shortly after take-off, SMU Assistant Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship (Education) Terence Fan said the Airbus 350 planes had an "airworthiness directive" issued on them by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency this year. "A350 is often deployed in long-haul flights, many of which traverse oceans or sparsely populated areas with few airports for the affected aircraft to immediately divert to if both engines lose power as a result of reduced fuel intake," he said. Clearly, the impairment was not to this extent at this point, but certainly sufficient to abort that flight to Zurich."
