KLM Cityhopper, the Dutch flag-carrier’s regional arm, is storing aircraft as it tackles a shortage of maintenance capacity at Pratt & Whitney.
Three of the operator’s fleet of 18 Embraer E195-E2s are currently stored at Twente Airport, in the east of the Netherlands, a KLM spokesman told Aviation Week Oct. 24.
“This is due to insufficient MRO capacity at Pratt & Whitney. It is not an engine issue as such, but a maintenance issue. Due to the previous powdered metal issue, the interval for maintenance has been shortened, and so the capacity of their shops is insufficient to deal with the sheer number of engines that are being offered for maintenance,” a KLM spokesman said. “[Pratt] expects that things will improve in the near future and that we will see that the problem will become less in the course of 2025.”
KLM Cityhopper said that the company expected more E2s to be parked, but that numbers and the length of time they would be grounded remained uncertain. The spokesman said that the number of grounded aircraft would not affect Cityhopper’s services.
The E195-E2 is powered by the PW1900G, which has been affected by contaminated powdered metal. Inspections are subsequently being made on both the E2 and the Airbus A220 (which uses the PW1500G member of the engine family).
Cityhopper still expects to have 25 E195-E2s in the fleet by the end of 2025, with three more scheduled to arrive in 2024 and the last four in 2025.
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