Jul. 25—Against the possibility of of powder contaminants affecting turbine disks in jet engines installed on an Airbus passenger plane model, Pratt & Whitney is disassembling engines to inspect the parts, with the CEO of its parent company saying "it's going to be expensive" during a Tuesday morning conference call.
Pratt & Whitney's parent company RTX — recently renamed and formerly known as Raytheon Technologies — announced the issue on Tuesday, which impacts PW1100G-JM geared turbofan engines Airbus uses for its A320neo passenger jet. Pratt & Whitney has its headquarters in East Hartford and a major plant in Middletown, with RTX based in Waltham, Mass.
Pratt & Whitney plans to accelerate engine removals and inspections with the goal of completing 200 by September and as many as 1,000 more through next year, making an initial projection of a $500 million reduction in free cash flow. The company traced the issue to its HMI Metal Powders facility outside Utica, N.Y., which produces powdered coatings for disks manufactured at a plant in Columbus, Ga.
"The big question is what are we going to have to do in terms of compensation to the airlines," said RTX CEO Greg Hayes, speaking Tuesday morning. "We've got two years to work through that, and we will figure that out."
RTX shares nosedived 15 percent after the opening bell to about $82.30 a share, its lowest price this year.
Airbus mounts engines from both Pratt & Whitney and GE Aviation on the A320neo. U.S. carriers using Pratt & Whitney engines on A320neo planes include Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines which both provide service at Bradley International Airport outside Hartford.
The India-based carrier IndiGo has the world's largest fleet of A320neo jets, with rival Go First also using the A320neo. Go First sued Pratt & Whitney earlier this year, claiming intensified inspections of engines forced it into bankruptcy.
Hayes said that Pratt & Whitney changed its process to screen the metal powder in question at the end of 2021, but only revealed the issue after its technical staff got recent data suggesting a possible continuing problem for as many as 1,200 engines. The company is providing data to the Federal Aviation Administration with the expectation the FAA will issue an alert to airlines and cargo carriers that may use the engine in question.
"This contamination had occurred between late 2015 and late 2020, early 2021, so we knew we had a suspect population in the fleet," Hayes said Tuesday. "Based upon everything we knew until very recently, we believed that the life of the turbine disk was such that we would see these disks in the shop and be able to inspect them before we ever had an issue."
Hayes described the powder in question as "a quality escape" and said he does not believe Pratt & Whitney has deeper problems in its engineering design processes despite other problems with the PW-1100 geared turbofan engine family.
"It is a problem and we have them every day, and we'll solve it," Hayes said. "These contaminants are microscopic, and unfortunately in the original process as we scaled up production for GTF it got away from us a little bit — and we fixed it."
RTX's chief operating officer said an engine disassembly is the only way to properly inspect the turbine disks for any sign of trouble.
"You've got to take the engine off wing," said Chris Calio, president and COO of RTX, speaking Tuesday. "Based on the geometry and the location of the part, you have to remove the part to do this enhanced inspection capability, reassemble, and then get it back out to the fleet."
Raytheon unveiled RTX as its new corporate name in June during the Paris Air Show, matching its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange. Raytheon merged in 2020 with the aviation systems businesses of United Technologies Corp., tacking on both Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace which is also a major Connecticut employer.
RTX recently sold a Collins Aerospace unit to Safran that makes flight control systems, at a $1.8 billion valuation. Safran takes on about 3,700 Collins Aerospace employees in Europe and Asia.
Pratt & Whitney revenue was up 15 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier to $5.7 billion, with operating profits off 24 percent to $230 million. Collins Aerospace sales rose 17 percent to nearly $5.9 billion, with operating profits spiking upward by half to $821 million.
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