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/QPFC[(TKFC[COsRO26 tions have done more to
transform our life over the
last century than jet en-
gines. They’ve let people
travel faster and farther, and
they’re remarkably safe.
Passenger fatalities like the
one caused by a turbine fail-
ure on a Southwest Airlines
flight last year are rare. De-
veloped at enormous ex-
pense and using innovative
new materials, the most re-
cent “powerplants” (to use
engines’ industry name) are
comparatively quiet and fuel
efficient.
Yet these innovations
have taken the technology
closer to its technical limits
and reliability issues have
crept in.
“By pushing the envelope
on thrust and efficiency,
things have started to go
wrong elsewhere in the sys-
tem,” says Nick Cunning-
ham at equity research firm
Agency Partners. This is
worrying because compa-
nies are under pressure to
build even more efficient
propulsion systems to curb
carbon emissions.
Rolls-Royce’s problems
appear the most serious —
about 40 787s powered by its
engines are parked — but
this is an industrywide issue.
Forced to ground planes and
adjust flight schedules, air-
lines have resorted to leas-
ing replacement aircraft and
have told engine manufac-
turers to pay compensation.
In September, Tim Clark,
the president of Emirates
airline, said manufacturers
are delivering aircraft that
don’t do what was promised.
“Give us airframes and en-
gines that work from Day
One. If you can’t do it, don’t
produce them,” he said.
The laws of science aren’t
the only thing testing the en-
gine makers. Airbus and
Boeing Co. have brought
several new passenger jets
to market in quick succes-
sion, and their powerplant
suppliers have had to ramp
up production rapidly. A lot
of new demand is from
emerging markets where
dusty or polluted air can put
additional strain on engines.
Airbus production was
thrown into chaos last year
by engine glitches involving
Pratt & Whitney’s geared
turbofan for the A320neo,
Airbus’s top-selling jet. More
recently the launch of Boe-
ing’s 777x wide-body aircraft
was pushed to next year af-
ter the premature wearing
out of a General Electric en-
gine component.
It’s one thing for an en-
gine to miss tough produc-
tion targets, but quite an-
other for engines to fail once
they’re in service. “Engine
manufacturers have always
had teething problems, but
in four decades I’ve never
seen anything like the list of
technical issues they’re been
having lately,” says John
Strickland, director of JLS
Consulting.
This month, India threat-
ened to ground scores of Air-
bus A230neo jets operated
by domestic carrier Indigounless the Pratt engines
were replaced by the end of
January. The warning fol-
lowed several incidents of
engines shutting down in
flight.
In October, Lufthansa
subsidiary Swiss temporari-
ly grounded its Airbus A220
fleet so the Pratt engines
could be inspected after a
spate of powerplant failures
(the debris from one such in-
cident was recovered from a
French forest last week).
Since then Canadian regula-
tors ordered the same air-
craft not to operate at full
power above a specified
altitude.
About 70% of airlines and
lessors surveyed by Citi Re-
search said groundings
caused by engine issues
were a key concern. Some
are looking to operate mixedfleets to lessen the risk of one
engine type being grounded.
While that’s prudent, it’s
more expensive than using a
single type of equipment.
The risk for engine man-
ufacturers is that reliability
issues cost them market
share. This year Air New
Zealand switched an order
for 787 jet engines to GE af-
ter problems with its Rolls-
Royce kit. Indigo placed a
$20-billion order with the
GE/Safran engine joint ven-
ture rather buy from Pratt
(Pratt claimed the decision
was price-related).
The problems haven’t af-
fected all new technologies.
Rolls-Royce’s XWB power-
plant for the Airbus A350 has
proved reliable so far.
There’s more at stake,
though, than airline flight
schedules and manufactur-ers’ pride and profitability.
As with the car industry, the
aerospace sector is gearing
up for an epochal effort to
curb carbon emissions. Avi-
ation accounts for 2% to 3%
of greenhouse gas emis-
sions, but the sheer volume
of plane deliveries in coming
years will counteract engine
efficiency gains. Aviation’s
share could rise to between
10% and 25% by 2050, a
Roland Berger study found.
Unlike carmakers, the
airlines lack viable techno-
logical alternatives. Biofuels
have potential, but fully elec-
tric large commercial air-
craft are probably decades
away.
Engine manufacturers
are working on still more effi-
cient jet engine designs.
Rolls-Royce says its
Ultrafan technology will de-liver a 25% improvement in
fuel burn compared with the
first generation of Trents.
Bringing these innovations
to market quickly is es-
sential from a planetary per-
spective, but rushing devel-
opment could prove coun-
terproductive. “My sense is
that public opinion in Eu-
rope at least is moving
quicker than the technol-
ogy,” says Rob Stallard at
Vertical Research Partners.
Cunningham is even less
optimistic.
“Gas turbines are run-
ning out of road at just the
point where the political im-
petus is toward greater de-
carbonization,” he says. “Jet
engines are unlikely to get a
lot better from here.”Bryant writes for
Bloomberg.Jet engines pushed to technical limits
VIRGIN ATLANTIC grounded its Boeing 787 aircraft because the Trent 1000 engine blades have been degrading faster than anticipated.FG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images[Engines, from C1]