While the engine MRO market has been sitting somewhat idle this past year, as demand has taken a nosedive due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the helicopter engine maintenance market hasn’t been hit quite as hard, sometimes even having more demand in some areas. Since its activity is strongly linked to protection and public safety, the helicopter world has been less affected than other commercial aviation sectors. “Medical transport, anti-terrorism, sea and mountain rescue, fire-fighting and aerial work missions must continue, whatever the economic conditions,” noted Jean Souetre, vice-president marketing and customer satisfaction for support and services at Safran Helicopter Engines.
Safran
Safran Helicopter Engines is dedicated exclusively to the helicopter market. Operating worldwide, it has more than 2,500 customers in 155 countries and 22,000 engines in service.
The company’s latest generation of engines has been designed with simple maintenance in mind by featuring fewer scheduled tasks and longer service intervals, and the components and accessories are easy to access, disassemble and exchange. On its recently-certified Arrano, engine of H160, servicing time is half that of previous generation engines.
In parallel, Souetre notes operators benefit from Safran’s new digital services, such as Health Monitoring, an engine-life data tracking system enabling predictive maintenance, or Expert link, a remote visual assistance service. All of Safran’s digital services are by-the-hour and contribute to improving the efficiency of support.
Expert link, the new Health Monitoring and SBH on-line launched at HAI Heli Expo in 2020 have seen a lot of success with customers, Souetre explains. “The enrolment rates continue to progress on both Health Monitoring and SBH online services over the last 12 months. Today, more than 600 customers use Health Monitoring for more than 4,000 engines. Those who subscribe to the ‘Premium’ level of Health Monitoring have detailed reports that provide advice on engine maintenance based on the health trends and operations from our experts,” Souetre said. “The feedback from customers highlights how these services, and others such as eSpares, online spare parts ordering service, save time and helps to avoid errors: two very important factors for our customers.”
Like most aerospace manufacturers, Safran’s business has been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, represented by a drop in flight hours for operator customers and a decline in orders from our helicopter manufacturer customers.
However, Safran Helicopter Engines has maintained its activities throughout the past year. Design offices, production, customer support and MRO centers have remained open. In strict compliance with health protocol, the company has learned to live with the virus while ensuring continuity of service for customers and their missions, either in person or — with the help of digital tools — remotely.
Souetre says the company has maintained strong performance in terms of product development. “With our Arrano and Aneto engines now certified, we are ready to support the Airbus H160 and Leonardo AW189K entry-into-service,” he explained. “We are supporting Airbus in the first development phase of its ‘Guépard’, a military variant of the H160. At the same time, we continued bench testing Tech TP, a turboprop demonstrator based on the gas generator module of the Ardiden 3.”
Despite challenging times in 2020, Safran celebrated the opening of its CAP 2020 industrial campus, in presence of by the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly. “It is a 50M€ investment for modernizing our MRO activity in Tarnos, France,” Souetre noted. “The flagship for support, Tarnos, is now doted with three brand new buildings covering 33,000m², two of which are dedicated to MRO and state-of-the art repair capabilities. The ambition for this new plant is to further reduce our repair cycles by 30%, ensure the highest safety levels and invest in innovative repair solutions to bring cost-effective services to our customers.”
Dallas Airmotive
Just because the industry is somewhat idle does not necessarily mean maintenance is idling. “We can only speak to the segment of the helicopter industry that we provide engine maintenance to,” noted Hugh McElroy, president and COO of global engine services for Dallas Airmotive. “For those operators, we’re continuing to see usage for military and various civil mission-related purposes like EMS, firefighting and forestry, but also people and cargo transport. If operators are exhibiting any downtime due to lack of usage, then many of them are opting to use that time by maintaining their aircraft and working with both Dallas Airmotive and H+S Aviation to maintain their engines.”
Dallas Airmotive is committed to the continuity of its business and following health and safety guidelines whilst doing so since the beginning of the pandemic. COVID has pushed the company to continue evolving with the world. Dallas has collaborated with OEMs to provide incentive programs and discounts to customers to relieve cost concerns. The company has also worked to protect its field service and shop staff by enacting PPE requirements, increasing the frequency and extent of cleaning of facilities and encouraging social distancing measures. Furthermore, Dallas has established virtual methods of engagement in its customer experience, so that customers may virtually visit facilities and discuss engine inspections and maintenance plans via video conferencing.
“We are fortunate to have reached many of our goals from 2020 and are also doing so in 2021,” explained McElroy. “Operators have continued to require support in the past year and we are optimistic about 2021’s business results.”
StandardAero
As technologies continue to improve on new engine platforms, StandardAero says the trend will continue toward more on-wing or on-condition maintenance and diagnostics. There will also be higher technology data gathering and monitoring methods, along with more data analysis capabilities to perform more predictive engine maintenance. “This will mean that MROs will need to keep up with OEM technology advances and provide the appropriate tooling and training to adapt to the advancements,” explained Brian Hughes, vice president of sales and marketing for StandardAero’s Helicopters business unit. “For now though, most of our engine authorizations are for more mature helicopter engine models and the nature of the maintenance cycles and MRO techniques for these platforms will continue to be driven by flying hours and the rugged environmental operations where helicopters tend to fly.”
Hughes says StandardAero’s Helicopter business experienced some holds last year, but business seems to be returning slowly in 2021. He pointed to a solid Military business, with no significant changes to government operating tempo both in the U.S. and globally.
Helicopter flying has been down in certain segments and steady in others since the first quarter of 2020. “The segments that have been down… tourism, utility work, private charter etc., are what have affected us,” he noted. “Overall though, I think we have managed through the uncertainties as best as we can.”
The worldwide health and economic disruptions are not yet behind us, says Hughes. First and foremost, he says the company must continue to maintain its attention to providing a safe work environment for its employees, customers and communities. “At the same time,” he notes, “we are working to continue to deliver the highest quality service levels while also sustaining our standard operational metrics and processes to drive efficiency and be ready to address the growth when the industry rebounds.”
Rolls-Royce
During the slowdown of regular MRO demand, Rolls-Royce has taken the opportunity to accelerate the pace of programs to implement durability improvements to some of its engines. The company is continuing to deliver MRO services under its TotalCare program rather than taking a time and material approach of pausing MRO services, which would result in a spike of demand when market demand returns.
“The majority of MRO demand is currently with our legacy fleets, but as new generation in-service fleets continue to grow and accumulate flying hours at a rapid rate over the coming decade, we expect to see increased demand for newer engine overhaul,” explained a Rolls-Royce spokesperson. “We will grow our CareNetwork to accommodate this through the development of our existing mix of wholly-owned, joint-venture and independent MRO facilities, with additional independent MRO facilities expected to be introduced in the mid-2020s.”
Demand for products and services has fallen significantly. Airframe partners have reduced production rates and the company has forecasted that 2021 engine flying hours will be down by 55% of 2019 levels.
Since the beginning of the pandemic the company has taken swift action to protect its business by both reducing its spend and by raising additional funds through activities such as a global restructuring program, a global footprint consolidation and a rights issue.
