AUSTRALIA'S aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), initiated over the weekend a review of maintenance practices at Jetstar Airways, the budget subsidiary of national carrier Qantas.

This comes just a week after the CASA took unprecedented action to ground its rival, Tiger Airways Australia, for safety violations (TTG Asia e-daily, July 7).

Jetstar reported last Thursday that it temporarily took four A320 aircraft out of commission for overdue maintenance, and consequently, two return flights had to be cancelled. According to a Jetstar spokesperson, the planes were grounded after crews discovered a prior mix up in their maintenance schedules.

The four planes were serviced overnight and returned to operation the following day, with Jetstar reassuring passengers that there was “no risk to the safety of the aircraft”.

While a spokesperson for CASA confirmed it does not believe there were any serious safety issues with regards to the maintenance oversight, he said that CASA’s review of Jetstar was ongoing, and that they would be “looking carefully at the low-cost carrier’s actions, and checking to ensure Jetstar's maintenance systems are robust and operating correctly”.