Engine-Makers Still Challenged Despite Easing Headwinds

In 2018, at the last “normal” Farnborough Airshow before the global pandemic, the commercial engine industry was focused on three main areas: gearing up production for the surge in new-generation single-aisle airliner deliveries, dealing with emerging widebody engine-durability issues and battling to power Boeing’s New Midsize Airplane.

Fast-forward to 2024 and some of the normalcy has returned, albeit without the prospect of the New Midsize Airplane—whose 2020 cancellation is, in hindsight, viewed with relief by the overstretched engine-makers. Better still, utilization rates for both narrowbodies and widebodies appear to have returned to pre-pandemic levels—bringing in valuable revenue from spares and maintenance and steadying the ship after a turbulent time for all the engine OEMs.

• Supply chain shortages continue to constrict production rate increases
• Rebound of engine utilization rates increases revenue from spares and MRO

But considerable challenges persist. The supply chain remains strained in certain areas, and the main engine-makers continue to play catch-up with delivery demands and durability improvements. These issues apply across their product ranges from the CFM Leap 1 to the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G geared turbofan and Rolls-Royce Trent 1000.

Despite the headwinds, prospects appear to be brightening swiftly for newly stand-alone GE Aerospace, which, just three weeks after officially spinning off from power provider GE Vernova in April, reported an operating profit of $1.5 billion for the first quarter. The company also raised its full-year profit guidance to as high as $6.6 billion, compared with the $5.6 billion achieved in 2023.

With 44,000 engines in service and a 55% market share, GE remains the dominant player in the civil propulsion business, due mainly to its CFM joint venture with Safran, which powers about 39% of the civil fleet. In widebodies, GE aims to expand its fleet from the current 7,200-plus engines with the addition of more GEnx-1s on new-build Boeing 787s and likely extra CF6-80s following the recent life extension to the venerable Boeing 767F program.

Most important for the company’s next-generation GE9X, deliveries of production-standard engines finally started in June for the long-delayed Boeing 777-9 program. Although Boeing’s target for the aircraft’s service entry is likely to slip beyond the estimate of late 2025, GE’s decision to commit to production deliveries speaks to increased industry confidence in the twinjet program’s nearer-term prospects.

“We’re focused on making sure we can meet the production ramp to support demand and the orderbooks that have already been put in place,” says Russell Stokes, president and CEO of GE Aerospace Commercial Engines and Services.

Beyond this, he says the focus is on durability upgrades to the Leap 1. Improved high-pressure turbines and nozzles will be introduced on the Leap 1A “by the end of this year and will go into the 1B fleet next year,” Stokes says.

Planning for production increases remains a moving target, however. Since the FAA halted Boeing’s plan to increase production of the 737 MAX in March, CFM has been forced to review its own Leap 1B manufacturing ramp-up plan. CFM had originally hoped to see overall Leap production grow 20-25% this year, including all three versions for Airbus, Boeing and Comac. That uptick has since been revised downward by as much as 15%. Most of the change will take place in Leap 1B production, CEO Olivier Andries said in late April at his company’s first-quarter earnings conference for financial analysts.

The change of plans took place after Andries repeatedly expressed concerns about Airbus’ and Boeing’s ramp-up intentions, which he deemed too challenging. “There’s no point in planning unrealistic things if no one is capable of delivering them,” he was quoted as saying in an article in French magazine L’Usine Nouvelle in December. “You have to be ambitious but remain realistic.”

In February, he again conveyed concern that persistent supply chain issues could put the production ramp-up at risk. Whether the updated production targets ease the stress on the supply chain remains to be seen. “Schedule changes do not necessarily make production easier, but we are all collectively working to help the supply chain,” a CFM spokesperson told Aviation Week in June.

The revision was a result of the soft start to aircraft production this year, Andries said in April. In addition to the change of plan at Boeing, engine deliveries have been affected by relatively slow Airbus A320neo production. Airbus delivered only 116 A320neo-family aircraft during the first quarter. Last year, CFM delivered 1,570 Leap engines, and the initial plan would have translated into 1,880-1,960 deliveries this year.

“The downward revision is about 150-200 engines,” Chief Financial Officer Pascal Bantegnie said at the first-quarter earnings conference in April. “Both installed and spare engines are affected.”

It is primarily Leap 1Bs that are affected, Andries noted. As CFM continued to deliver engines according to Boeing’s request for the first quarter, the airframer had an increased buffer of engines. “We took that into account for the adjustment of our deliveries,” Andries said.

He ruled out the risk of creating an inventory at Safran. “It is not our intention to build a buffer,” he said. “We will [reschedule] our purchasing of parts. We are not going to build engines that aircraft manufacturers are not going to take.”

CFM’s caution was justified on June 25, when Airbus reduced its delivery target for the year to 770 from nearly 800 aircraft and delayed its target timeline for ramping up A320neo production. CFM initially planned on production of 75 A320neo-family aircraft per month in 2026, but it now hopes that rate will be reached in 2027.

As a result of the revised plans, CFM sales revenue has been affected negatively, but, perhaps counterintuitively, earnings will reflect a slightly positive effect as the engines are sold at a loss, Bantegnie explained. Free cash flow will suffer from the reduced advanced payments. Meanwhile, as operators will use their older aircraft, such as CFM56-powered 737s and A320s, more intensively, spare parts sales are expected to improve.

For its part, Pratt is slowly working through the contaminated powder metal (PM) issue that will have ramifications for several years. The good news: Pratt’s projections that in-service groundings would peak in the first half of 2024 appear to be holding.

As of June 23, about 673 aircraft, or one-third of the 2,034 in-service aircraft powered by PW1000Gs, were parked or stored, Aviation Week Network Fleet Discovery shows.

The total includes aircraft parked for any reason, not only those that are affected by Pratt’s PM fleet-management plan, which has hundreds of engines coming off wing for earlier-than-envisioned inspections of certain life-limited parts (LLP)—the most critical in any engine—to detect signs of cracking and prevent in-service failures.

While causing 600-plus airframes to be parked due to engine-durability issues does not reflect well on the engine-maker, the figure has been stable since early April after a steady climb that started last September (AW&ST April 22-May 5, p. 44).

Affected operators have aligned their revised engine-overhaul plans to meet Pratt’s new inspection protocols, which regulators have mandated. The OEM’s plan also calls for some reduced life limits, requiring affected material to be replaced earlier than envisioned.

The FAA’s most recent airworthiness directive, issued in March, kicked off the latest round of groundings and inspections.

Meanwhile, the company is spooling up production of full-life parts to feed both the production line and overhaul shops. Pratt has been delivering new engines with full-life LLPs since late 2023, but replacing all suspect in-service parts with new ones will take time.

Any part subject to the inspections that is cleared must come back for follow-up checks. Intervals vary by part, but engines on the busiest A320neos will hit some of Pratt’s repetitive inspection thresholds within a year or less. The potential for headaches for operators and shops underscores the importance of installing full-life parts as soon as possible.

While Pratt is working to bring on shop capacity faster than planned and boost production of spare parts, projected wing-to-wing turnaround times remain at 250-300 days. Initial mandatory engine removals began in September. If Pratt’s calculations are right, the grounding figure should begin to fall soon as engines finally start returning from shop visits.

But some airlines have expressed concern that Pratt’s projections are optimistic. Volaris Chief Executive Enrique Beltranena said in April that the carrier is assuming the PM work will take at least 350 days. The carrier handed over its first nine engines last September and is not planning to have them back until Oct. 1 at the earliest.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said at Bernstein’s 40th Annual Strategic Decisions Conference at the end of May that Pratt’s issues are enough to convince the carrier, which operates PW1100G-powered A321neos, to opt for leased aircraft of the type with CFM Leap 1As.

“The GTF issue is probably worse than Boeing,” Kirby said. “Our new [A321neos] that we’re leasing have Leap engines because of that.”

In the meantime, Pratt is working busily on to flow an upgraded version of the PW1000G, the Advantage, off its production lines. Currently in testing, the Advantage is the family’s first upgraded version and is rated at up to 34,000 lb. of thrust. It incorporates material, design and airflow upgrades in the low- and high-pressure spools.

Among Pratt’s targets are a 4% thrust improvement at sea level and up to 8% at higher elevations, all without increasing operating temperatures. Pratt publicly has not revised its plan for the engine, which is interchangeable on wing with existing PW1100Gs, to become the new production standard in 2026.

At Rolls, still in the midst of a radical restructuring plan launched in November by CEO Tufan Erginbilgic, fortunes have begun to rebound in lockstep with the revival in long-haul flying that its growing fleet of Trent 1000s, 7000s and XWBs mainly supports. Operational data for January-April this year shows that Rolls-powered aircraft finally surpassed 2019 aggregate utilization. Since the long-running Trent 1000 durability issues are now being handled and Trent XWB deliveries are speeding up for the Airbus A350, Rolls’ large-engine in-service fleet is expected to grow to 4,615 this year. The UK engine-maker was powering 2,303 active aircraft in April this year versus 1,921 in April 2019, a jump of almost 20%.

Rolls continues to develop upgrades for its Trent 1000, 7000 and XWB engine family aimed at improving durability considerably and bolstering its longer-term market position in the widebody sector on the Airbus A330neo and A350 and Boeing 787 programs. The move follows Erginbilgic’s announcement in November that the company planned to plow more than £1 billion ($1.26 billion) into the product line that exclusively powers the A330neo and A350 and, in the case of the Trent 1000, competes with GE’s GEnx-1B on the 787.

The upgrade effort includes new materials, coatings and turbine-cooling systems. The Trent 7000 upgrades build on a durability enhancement that entered service on the A330neo in 2022 and are expected to improve time on wing by a further 30% before service entry in 2026.

On the Trent 1000 TEN, the sister engine to the Trent 7000, the same upgrade package was flight-tested on a development 787 in late 2023. The new turbine blade design, which boosts cooling airflow by 40% and increases blade life by reducing sustained operating temperatures by 45F, forms part of a company plan to double time on wing. Like the Trent 7000 effort, a follow-on enhancement package planned by Rolls also promises a further 30% time-on-wing extension in 2026.

For the Trent XWB-84 on the A350-900, Rolls aims to complete a series of aerodynamic upgrades that are expected to deliver a 1% improvement in fuel burn on new-build engines in 2025. Upgrades are also planned for the higher-thrust XWB-97; in 2023, Emirates Airline President Tim Clark criticized and effectively ruled out an order for A350-1000s if Rolls did not devise major improvements.

While details remain scarce, Rolls says a series of technology insertions are planned for the XWB-97 through 2028 that is intended to double time on wing for desert operators and provide a 50% extension for operators in normally benign regions.