Revisiting and updating one of the most popular Flight Fridays in 2024, this week we again look at the CFM Leap and Pratt & Whitney PW1000G (GTF).
At the beginning of 2023, both the Leap and the GTF had a similar percentage of monthly non-flying days. Note that non-flying days can be for several reasons and are not necessarily related to maintenance issues. However, the tale of the two engines has bifurcated since then.
The CFM Leap has moved from 20% of non-flying days in early 2023 down to single digits in the Northern hemisphere’s summer in 2024. The Leap had a short uptick in non-flying days during January 2024 due to the grounding of the Boeing 737-9s following the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout incident involving a -9.
There are still durability improvements that are coming to the Leap engines, alongside improved high-pressure turbines and nozzles that are going to be introduced over the coming months. Recently, Airbus claimed that deliveries of Leap-powered A320neo family aircraft have been delayed due to engines not being delivered in time.
Pratt’s GTF, on the other hand, has had a more turbulent time. Since the announcement of high-pressure turbine 1 and 2 blade issues in July 2023, the number of non-flying days has grown as operators remove GTFs from aircraft for inspection and technical updates. With a limited number of spare engines available, this means that some aircraft are remaining on the ground for longer periods, as the turnaround time on the GTFs is still quite lengthy.
However, there seems to be a small positive in the data. The percentage of non-flying days has consistently grown from the announcement through to March 2024. Starting in April 2024, that percentage has dropped—ever so slightly—a drop, nonetheless. With supply chain, workforce and engine shop availability issues that are prolonging the update of these engines, Pratt predicted peak non-flying days to be in the second quarter of 2024.
To answer a question posed earlier in the year—"are we in peak non-flying days for the GTF?"—the answer seems to be, we have reached peak, and now we are in a state of plateau which will more than likely endure for the Northern hemisphere’s winter schedule, before improvements in late Q1 or Q2 2025.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization tool.
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