Pratt & Whitney sees China and the Asia-Pacific region as key markets for sales of its PW1000G family of geared-turbofan (GTF) engines, the two markets containing more than 40 percent of the total aircraft-operator customer base to date for the PW1000G family and offering considerable potential for further sales.

“They are a big part of our market and are very key areas for us,” Rick Deurloo, Pratt & Whitney’s senior vice president for sales and marketing-commercial engines told AIN. “We have six [GTF] operators in China flying passengers around—Air China, China Southern, Sichuan Airlines, Hong Kong Express, Tianjin, and Westair.”

Similarly, the Asia-Pacific market outside China is “a big growth market for us,” said Deurloo. “We have nine [GTF] customers on direct purchase.” They are Aircalin (Air Calédonie International), Air New Zealand, ANA, Cebu Pacific, Korean Air, and Scoot/Tigerair, and “about half the [existing] GTF fleet is flying in India, with IndiGo and GoAir.” Additionally, Vietnamese carrier Vietjet received its first A321neo, a PW1100G-JM-powered leased aircraft, in late December and it has ordered 72 more directly from Airbus. All will be P&W GTF-powered. Overall, “More than 40 percent of our [GTF] operator fleet in terms of customers is within China and the Asia-Pacific.”

Also, China and India “are very strong growth markets” for air transport and “the growth is just incredible” in both nations’ airline industries, added Deurloo. Not only are they the two most populous countries on Earth, but “they have huge populations which have yet to travel” by air. As the two massive countries’ national economies continue to grow at rates faster than those in developed nations, each year more Chinese and Indian citizens find themselves able to afford airline tickets for the first time.

Like rival engine OEM GE Aviation, P&W thinks the Chinese Government’s efforts to develop the economies of relatively undeveloped regions of Western China will create an important new market for single-aisle aircraft such as the A320neo family and the Bombardier C Series, creating opportunities for sales of PW1000G-family engines. In terms of the air-route distances involved, “the East-West China market…is almost like a U.S. transcontinental market,” said Deurloo.

While P&W doesn’t generally “treat one region differently from another” in terms of its GTF sales and marketing activities, Deurloo confirmed that from a sales, marketing and customer-service viewpoint the manufacturer does view the China and Asia-Pacific markets separately. “We count them as two separate regions,” he said. “China is an important long-term customer for us.” While P&W doesn’t tend to have regionally based sales, marketing and customer-service teams, “we have a deployed team based out of Beijing. We have a deployed team in India as well,” because India has become such an important market for GTF sales.

Similarly, while for most of the world, P&W performs its customer MRO and operational training at its Customer Training Center in East Hartford, Connecticut, the company has opened customer training centers in both China and India because “they are such growth areas, with a lot of customers flying our product,” said Deurloo.

Technical Teething Problems Over

Two technical teething problems are now over, Tom Pelland, P&W’s senior v-p of SVP programs-c – Commercial eEngines, told AIN. Theyaffected GTF-powered A320neo-family and Bombardier C Series-family deliveries and created a sizable number of GTF-related aircraft-on-ground (AOG) issues—particularly in aircraft operated in the hot and harsh atmospheric conditions of India—during an 18-month period in 2016 and 2017.

While much media reporting described the first issue as oil leaks from GTF engines’ number-three bearing carbon “lift-off” oil seals, Pelland said the issue actually was that the lift-off seals were wearing prematurely. Chip detectors in the engines detected carbon fragments from the seals. Similarly, while much reporting of the other issue described it as a vibration-resonance combustor shriek or howl, it was actually that GTF combustor lining material—particularly in the hottest areas of the combustor—was deteriorating prematurely, and chip detectors were picking up lining fragments caused by the premature wear.

All repairs made to those parts by P&W to PW1100G-JM engines powering A320neo-family aircraft and PW1500Gs powering C Series jets last year involved replacing the damaged parts with new parts of the same, original configuration. However, from this month onward, any already-installed GTF engines coming for repair or overhaul to the four MRO shops of P&W and its licensees IHI, Lufthansa Technik and MTU will have those parts replaced by parts of new configurations embodying P&W’s permanent fixes, according to Pelland. (P&W recently licensed Delta TechOps to become a fifth member of the GTF MRO network, which will happen in due course.) Certification flight-testing of the permanent fixes showed P&W that “they will dramatically enhance the time on wing that Indian operators are experiencing today.”

Pelland said that after conducting extensive ground and flight testing of the permanent fixes P&W developed for the two issues, the OEM obtained certification late last fall for the fixes for the PW1100-JM and began delivering new engines with the improved part configurations to Airbus in December. The first new engines with the improved parts should enter service on new A320neo-family jets in February, and P&W is now delivering all new PW1100G-JMs with the permanent fixes installed, he said. Deliveries of new PW1500Gs to Bombardier with the new permanent fixes will begin in the second quarter.

As a result of P&W’s decision last fall to divert a number of new-production PW1100G-JMs and PW1500Gs to create robust pools of spare engines to service any AOG emergency, the troublesome AOG situation the OEM faced for several months in 2017 no longer exists, said Pelland. Now, “there is no AOG situation, and we have the ability to clear any situation very quickly” because the spare-engine pools have been established.

The PW1000G Production Ramp

PW1000G production continues to ramp up and the company sees no further major pacing issues following P&W’s resolution of the GTF fan-blade manufacturing quality problem that slowed production in 2016. At that time only one facility was making the hybrid aluminum blades, and the complex manufacturing techniques required to produce them led to the quality inspection-approval rate for new fan blades staying unacceptably low for many months.

However, said Pelland, “We had a plan in place from 18 months back and our capacity and yield improvements are in place. I’m pleased to say the output from our three facilities”—two in Lansing, Michigan, and one at GTF program partner IHI in Japan—“is really good and has met or exceeded our expectations. Fan-blade production is not a pacing item and it won’t be going forward.”

By the summer of 2017 the three GTF fan-blade production facilities were achieving an overall quality inspection-approval rate of 95 percent and Pelland said that, “from a pure yield perspective, it has stabilized in that area, which is quite strong” for such a complex part. “We have driven down that learning curve and we continue to look at yield improvements and capacity increases. We will continue to improve [the quality inspection-approval yield] going forward.”

For P&W’s annual GTF production in 2017, this meant that the company was able to deliver a total of 376 PW1000Gs for new aircraft and as spares during the year. This allowed P&W to “hit the upper end of the range” of 350-400 PW1000Gs that United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said in the third quarter the manufacturer was targeting as its GTF production total for 2017, according to Pelland.

Hayes told equity analysts in October that P&W was targeting a 2018 PW1000G delivery total of 700 to 800 engines, and Pelland told AIN in January that this is unchanged. “The target is the higher end of the production range,” he added. “We have really good visibility on delivering on the commitments and we have improved visibility on where the raw material and supply-chain inputs are coming in. We are confident we are going to hit that ramp” and that total 2018 GTF production will be “a little bit more than double” the 2017 total. This statement indicates that P&W expects to deliver at least 750-760 PW1000G engines this year.