Mumbai: Pratt & Whitney continues to grapple with fresh issues in its new aircraft engines — the lead market for which is India — even after crossing 1 million hours of service, typically considered a significant period for identifying and resolving problems with a new product.
The geared turbofan engines, powering 350 planes in the world and 97 in India have crossed 1.5 million hours of service. Senior executives at the engine maker had earlier told ET that the company was trying to identify and resolve issues with the product within the 1 million mark.
“I am not aware of any hard target. Normally, one million is considered a significant body of experience in terms of operating hours. Any initial issues are normally resolved within that time frame. But there is no magic number,” Mark Cryan, vice-president, customers (India, Middle East and Africa) for commercial engines at Pratt & Whitney, told ET in an interview.
“Reliability rates will improve to a level that people realise it’s business as usual and there will be no drama like in the past,” he said, without alluding to a specific future target.
“Reliability rates will improve to a level that people realise it’s business as usual and there will be no drama like in the past,” he said, without alluding to a specific future target.
The latest problem to crop up is that of a gearbox failure. The company is doing what it calls a “root cause analysis” of the issue before it identifies how many engines are currently impacted by it. That will be followed by a solution, a new set of engines equipped with the solution and a retrofitting of those engines into the existing impacted fleet and future aircraft deliveries.
18/01/19 Anirban Chowdhury/Economic Times
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The geared turbofan engines, powering 350 planes in the world and 97 in India have crossed 1.5 million hours of service. Senior executives at the engine maker had earlier told ET that the company was trying to identify and resolve issues with the product within the 1 million mark.
“I am not aware of any hard target. Normally, one million is considered a significant body of experience in terms of operating hours. Any initial issues are normally resolved within that time frame. But there is no magic number,” Mark Cryan, vice-president, customers (India, Middle East and Africa) for commercial engines at Pratt & Whitney, told ET in an interview.
“Reliability rates will improve to a level that people realise it’s business as usual and there will be no drama like in the past,” he said, without alluding to a specific future target.
“Reliability rates will improve to a level that people realise it’s business as usual and there will be no drama like in the past,” he said, without alluding to a specific future target.
The latest problem to crop up is that of a gearbox failure. The company is doing what it calls a “root cause analysis” of the issue before it identifies how many engines are currently impacted by it. That will be followed by a solution, a new set of engines equipped with the solution and a retrofitting of those engines into the existing impacted fleet and future aircraft deliveries.
18/01/19 Anirban Chowdhury/Economic Times
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