Page 5 - AAA MAY - JUNE 2018 Online Magazine

WAITING TO UNFOLD

The Farnborough Airshow will provide an insight into the
status of important commercial aircraft programmes

Geoffrey Thomas

arnborough 2018 will play out against one of its top trouble shooters to help Rolls Royce work through
a backdrop of unprecedented and the problems. These complex engine snafus go further than
fascinating dynamics that could give just the 787 and are impacting Airbus sales efforts for the A350
Fhints of how the next decade in com- suggests Richard Aboulafia of Teal Group. “It’s a big issue for
mercial aviation is going to shape up. All the Boeing [787] and for Airbus [A350],” said Aboulafia. He sug-
major engine makers have problems to solve, gests that airline confidence in Rolls Royce has been dented and
there is a slight softening of the commercial this could hurt sales prospects for the A350 with airlines such
order market with possible order deferments, as Australia’s Qantas, which is evaluating the A350-900ULR
new partnerships between airframe manufac- against the 777X for its Project Sunrise.
turers being consummated while long-term
widebody strategies are being crystalized.

Propulsion Problems
In the months and weeks leading up to
Farnborough, Rolls Royce was grappling with
twin issues with its Trent 1000 with Package
C on the Boeing 787, which has left many air-
craft grounded and the British engine maker
with a black eye. Late in May, Rolls Royce said
it was expecting an increase in the number of
787s grounded with insiders suggesting 50
787s would be without engines. “We fully rec-
ognize the unacceptable levels of disruption
our customers are facing,” Chris Cholerton,
the company’s president of civil aerospace,
said in the statement to Reuters. While Rolls is in the hot seat for the moment, Pratt and Whitney
“While we expect the number of aircraft is only now solving its GTF engine issues for the A320neo family.
affected to rise in the short term as the dead- According to New York based analysts Bernstein in the first
line for the completion of initial inspections quarter A320neo deliveries were weak overall, with 30 aircraft
approaches, we are confident that we have delivered all with the CFM LEAP engine, due to the need for Pratt
the right building blocks in place to tackle the & Whitney to address a seal issue on the GTF engines that had
additional workload.” But the problems go halted deliveries. Bernstein details the problems thus; FADEC
well beyond the grounding with many oper- error messages, extended cooling times, fan blade quality and
ators impacted by revised ETOPS conditions production rate issues, carbon seal in the third stage bearing,
and MTOW restrictions. The issues have and hot spots forming on the combustor liner. However, the
prompted Boeing to move Keith Leverkuhn analysts say that its expectation is that P&W will get all done

ASIAN AIRLINES & AEROSPACE May/June 2018 | 5