Preparing for the future

As Pratt & Whitney (P&W) commemorates its 100TH anniversary this year, the company can take pride on a century of innovation even as it works to bring advancements to the the next generation of single-aisle aircraft ROB GRIFFITHS, Senior Vice President, Commercial Engines Operations, Pratt & Whitney explains how the company is actively exploring technologies such as composite fan blades, reduced core sizes, ceramic matrix composites, and hybrid-electric propulsion to further enhance the groundbreaking efficiency of modern engines. Some excerpts

- ROB GRIFFITHS

What are some of the key trends that Pratt & Whitney is witnessing from airline customers/lessors on engine requirements?

We continue to see strong demand for the GTF, with a growing orderbook of 11,000 customers, and the GTF Advantage will help us meet that demand as it becomes the production standard over the next few years. Our customers remain focused on durability and fuel efficiency, and the GTF Advantage will deliver improvements in both categories, among others.

At the same time, we're also working to improve the durability of the current GTF engine through block upgrades and by offering the GTF Advantage hot section as a retrofit option in the future.

How is Pratt & Whitney addressing global supply chain challenges to ensure resilience and timely delivery of engines and MRO services?

We're continuing to see steady improvements in our supply base. For example, in Q1, structural castings at Pratt & Whitney were up 16 per cent year-over-year, and PW1100 MRO was up 35 per cent year-over-year, and we remain on track for over a 30 per cent improvement for the full year.

While we are seeing improvements, industry-wide supply chain pressures continue to affect material availability. Pratt & Whitney has taken several actions to increase supply chain output, including embedding engineers, quality and delivery assurance professionals with key suppliers to address challenges in real-time, helping to accelerate the delivery of parts, as well as continuing to qualify additional suppliers on key programs expanding value stream capacity. All of these initiatives are reflected in the execution of our CORE operating system, which is a common set of methods and tools to improve processes and deliver on customer commitments.