According to current folklore, engine makers don't actually make any money out of building engines: they give them away, and then hope they will recoup the cost out of spares and maintenance in years to come. The engine makers, at least in public, will reject that as a wild exaggeration, but, in private, they are doing something that seems even odder in the ultra-competitive airliner market. Far from giving them away, they are starting to baulk at making engines at all for some of the pet projects being developed by airframers.
The world's airlines are increasingly demanding specialised variants of all the popular types of large airliner. Some want extra range; some want extra capacity; and some want both. Each fresh demand means a new variant of the airframe, and most mean a new variant (or at worst a totally new engine)from the powerplant suppliers.
It is that multiplicity of demands on the engine-makers and the airframe companies which is, inevitably, going to lead to a rationalisation of variants offered by both.
In the new world order, it is probably only the airlines which really want a choice of engines on a particular airframe - simply because it increases their bargaining power when shopping for engines. (Of course, once they have made their buying decisions, the airlines want all the cost benefits arising from single-engine selection.) Sometimes, the airframe manufacturers want to be able to offer an engine choice - but only because they believe that their customers want it. Deep down, no airframer really wants to go through the hassle of certificating one airframe with two or three different engines. If a choice might double potential sales, then an airframer will accept it, but not with real enthusiasm.
The engine makers certainly do not want multiple engine-choices on airframes. They may want to be on the popular airframes, but would prefer to be exclusive rather than optional suppliers to each type. Until now, however, they have usually accepted the demands of the airlines and the airframers (and their own egos) and offered engines for anything that might fly.
Now, the engine makers are drawing a line under such profligacy. Developing an engine variant - especially one for extended-range twin-engined operations - is not worth the effort unless the airframer manages to sell the aircraft in its hundreds. With more than one supplier, the equation is even more difficult to balance. The three-horse race to power the new Airbus and Boeing "big twins" (with nearly 500 sales to date) helped teach the engine industry a costly lesson in market economics.
The engine-makers must choose on which types they are willing to risk their shirts - and, increasingly, they are voting to reduce that risk. Cutting the number of types it is willing to power can bring its own risks, however. If an engine maker decides that it cannot afford to offer to power the stretched variant of a particular airliner, it may also be cutting itself out of sales for the baseline aircraft. Commonality arguments are not as strong among airlines as they once were, but there are still many which would not contemplate having different engines on variants of the same basic airframe.
Engine makers, however, appear increasingly ready to take the gamble that an airframe variant may be launched without them - comforted, perhaps, by the knowledge that their main engine competitors are labouring under the same financial pressures to resist new projects.
The net outcome from these considerations is that - for the first time in a long time - the engine makers, far from falling over themselves to get onto every airframe project going, are playing hard to get. Some, indeed, are making the unheard-of decision not to become involved in certain projects. That leaves the airframers, in turn, in the unaccustomed position of not being able to launch new projects because they do not have any engine options (far less set specifications) to offer their customers. It has been a long time since a potentially good airliner went unlaunched for lack of suitable power, but it might be about to happen again.
Source: Flight International
