Pratt & Whitney has resolved a supplier quality problem that limited deliveries of geared turbofan-powered Airbus A320neos to six aircraft in the second quarter, United Technologies executives say.
The engine supplier also recommitted to deliver 350-400 geared turbofan engines overall in 2017 and "north of 700" engines next year, says UTC chief executive Greg Hayes, speaking on a 25 July earnings call with analysts.
In June, P&W disclosed that a "quality escape" by a supplier had halted deliveries of the PW1100G engine model to Airbus for a few weeks. The manufacturer has not provided details of the reason for the quality lapse.
Despite the setback, P&W built nearly 140 PW1100Gs during the first half of the year, meaning the company needs to deliver at least 210 engines in the second half of the year to meet P&W's minimum delivery range.
"Clearly, we see line of sight to 350-plus [deliveries in 2017]," Hayes says. "Whether we get all the way to 400, I don't know. But we've got a commitment to Airbus in terms of the number of engines that we have to get on dock."
P&W previously had planned to ramp up to 800 engine deliveries in 2018, as the company seeks to ramp up to 2,000 annual deliveries by 2020. But Hayes raised the possibility that P&W will fall short of that ramp-up goal next year.
"Next year you'll probably build north of 700 of those," Hayes says.
P&W is currently delivering production geared turbofan engines to the A320neo and Bombardier CSeries programmes. Other versions of the engine are supporting development of the Embraer E-Jet E2 family, Irkut MC-21-300 and Mitsubishi Regional Jet.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
