Pratt & Whitney remains on target to hit its 2018 commercial aircraft engine delivery commitments despite output sagging in the third quarter, say executives at parent company United Technologies.
"Pratt & Whitney remains on track to meet its full-year customer delivery commitments and to approximately double [geared turbofan] production from 2017," said UTC vice-president of investor relations Carroll Lane during a third-quarter earnings call on 23 October.
"Total geared turbofan shipments, including those to the spare engine pool, continued to increase sequentially and grew significantly over the prior year third quarter," he adds.
However, deliveries of large commercial engines fell to 198 in the third quarter, down from 210 in the previous three-month period, UTC says.
That decrease largely reflects a slowing of deliveries of earlier-generation International Aero Engines V2500s, production of which is declining as demand for new PW1000G geared turbofans (GFT) increases, P&W tells FlightGlobal.
Shipments of geared turbofans "saw no significant change" between the second and third quarter, it says.
The third-quarter deliveries bring to 532 the number of large commercial engines delivered by P&W over the first nine months of 2018.
That figure includes both the PW1000Gs and V2500s, though UTC does not break out engine models.
But Airbus delivered 47 V2500-powered A320s during the first nine months of 2018, suggesting P&W may have handed over about 440 GTFs in the period, the majority of which were for the A320neo, but also included engines for the A220 and Embraer E190-E2.
P&W delivered 374 geared turbofan engines last year, giving a 2018 target of around 750 units.
The propulsion specialist has been under pressure to ramp up GTF deliveries in line with increased output of A320neos. The company has also suffered delivery delays due to supply chain shortages and technical problems.
P&W's sales surged 24% year-on-year in the third quarter, to $4.8 billion, but operating profit slid 42% to $109 million.
Third-quarter sales at sister company UTC Aerospace Systems climbed 9% year on year, to $4 billion, while operating profit increased 7%, to $610 million.
Story updated on 22 October, in fifth and six paragraphs, to include comments from P&W about third quarter engine shipments.
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