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Flight Friday: Slow Progress In Asia-Pacific Widebody Utilization Recovery
A Rolls-Royce Trent XWB, on display in February 2024, at the Singapore Airshow.
With the second annual Aero-Engines Asia-Pacific event coming up April 23-24, this week’s Flight Friday looks at widebody engine utilization by Asia-Pacific operators. The Asia-Pacific region in this analysis excludes China and India.
Overall, Asia-Pacific widebody utilization is down just under 10% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2025 compared to Q1 2019. Part of the issue is due to the 5% decline of the in-service fleet (ISF) between the two dates, but it’s also because the region has taken a little longer to recover compared to other global regions.
When split by engine manufacturer, Rolls-Royce and General Electric (GE) account for almost 90% of all widebody flights by Asia-Pacific operators. With both accounting for almost 45% of the Q1 2025 flights, these manufacturers power approximately 38,000 cycles per month.
The return to service of the Airbus A330 was a huge boost to Rolls-Royce, with the uptick seen in aftermarket support and supplies helping keep its share price up. The A350 also has a strong presence within the region, and with the A350 powered exclusively by the Trent XWB, there is still a long tail of aftermarket support to come. Rolls-Royce currently powers nearly 650 of Asia-Pacific operators’ widebody aircraft.
GE is the second largest of the widebody engine providers in the region with a little over 600 twin-aisles in service. A third of those aircraft are Boeing 777-300ERs and are well used within the region, so they have strong utilization rates. Many GE-powered 747s have been retired or moved out of Asia-Pacific since 2019, with 30 fewer in service—a sign of the times for the thirsty Queen of the Skies.
Pratt & Whitney accounts for around 10% of the utilization in the region. With an in-service fleet of 120 aircraft, it accounts for 9% of the fleet. Powering more of the legacy fleet, this utilization will plateau and slowly begin to diminish over the coming years.
CFM International powers a handful of A340s in the region, and whilst it is really low on widebody utilization, it’s a different story for narrowbody utilization.
This data was put together using Aviation Week’s Tracked Aircraft Utilization database.
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