Hong Kong’s flagship carrier has temporarily grounded its fleet of A350 aircraft for inspections after it discovered problems with its Rolls-Royce engines.

Cathay Pacific cancelled 24 flights and said it was conducting “precautionary” inspections across its 48-strong fleet after a “first of its type” engine component failure forced a flight to Zurich to turn back on Monday.

Rolls-Royce saw £2.7bn knocked off its stock market value on Monday as Cathay said “a number of aircraft will be out of service for several days”.

Eight of Cathay’s nine flights from Hong Kong to Singapore on Tuesday were axed, according to the airline’s website. Flights to Bangkok, Tokyo, Taipei and Osaka were cancelled as well.

“This component was the first of its type to suffer such failure on any A350 aircraft worldwide,” the airline said.

A precautionary fleet-wide inspection found a number of the same engine components that needed to be replaced, according to Cathay.

Tokyo-based Japan Airlines (JAL), which has five A350-1000s that are all less than a year old, said it had asked Rolls-Royce for more information and had not stopped A350 flights in the meantime.

“If the engine manufacturer takes any further action, we will respond accordingly,” a JAL spokesman said.

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