Bringing an aircraft out of long-term storage can be a monumental task, and even then, things may not always go as perfectly planned once it gets back into service. For Qantas, that was the case after they were forced to ground an Airbus A380 just one day after re-entering service from long term storage.

Following the pandemic, Qantas parked its entire fleet of A380s due to the drastic reduction in international travel. In late 2021, the Australian carrier started reintroducing them, initially planning to have all 10 back in service by the end of 2024. However, due to supply chain issues and the sheer amount of work required to bring back an A380 to airworthy status, the very last few did not return to the skies until 2025.

The very last A380 to re-enter service was 17 1/2 years old VH-OQC. This aircraft sat in storage for almost six years, from March 22, 2020 to November 29, 2025. For its first commercial run, VH-OQC performed flight QF11 from Sydney (SYD) to Lon Angeles (LAX). Even though the aircraft made it safely to its destination, it was far from a nominal flight as reported by 2PAXfly.

Even after the more than 100,000 combined man hours put into restoring the aircraft, the first major problem popped up when one of the slats on the left wing was damaged, resulting in what was essentially a gaping hole. Now, to be fair, this isn’t the wing itself that was damaged as the slat is a movable aerodynamic surface on the leading edge of a wing.

qantas airbus A380 vh oqc slat damage
Credit: Lynn Gilmartin/Instagram

Slats are used to help maintain lift and improve aircraft control at slower speeds (e.g. during takeoff and landing). Each wing has multiple slats, so just one being damaged will result in a small performance penalty. It’s not clear when the slat broke apart, but it’s certainly not a good look for the maintenance team, and could definitely be worrying for passengers not familiar with the workings on an aircraft.

From some of the social media posts, its clear many passengers assumed it was the wing itself that was damaged, leading to a bit of discomfort.

On top of that, electrical gremlins plagued the aircraft as the seatback TVs did not work throughout the flight, and some of the reading and cabin lights failed. There were also reports of seats that could not recline (I’m sure that’s a topic bound to spark debate), as well as toilets that overflowed.

As a result of these issues, VH-OQC had to be taken offline for emergency repairs, resulting in the returning flight (QF12) being canceled. Passengers were later reaccommodated on other flights back to Sydney.

In the grand scheme of things, any of these issues could have happened to aircraft in active service, but all happening at once certainly is a rough start for an aircraft just re-entering service. Usually you don’t hear about scenarios like this, even for aircraft that have sat in long term storage. Obviously Qantas will have some questions for its Abu Dhabi team as they were quite proud to talk about the aircraft’s re-introduction just a week before.

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