Rolls-Royce and American Airlines have signed a letter of intent to form a 50:50 engine repair joint venture based at American's existing Alliance maintenance base in Fort Worth, Texas.
The tie-up follows the US carrier's selection in November of Trent 800 engines for 11 Boeing 777-200IGWs (Increased Gross Weight) ordered in 1997, the first of which is due for delivery in January 1999.
R-R says that the new operation will open later this year and will "gradually evolve", adding that it will serve "the Americas" in the same way that its Hong-Kong Aero Engine Services (HAESL) joint venture with HAECO (Hong Kong Aero Engines) serves the Asia-Pacific region. R-R says that its existing operations in Canada and Brazil will be unaffected.
The move is the latest twist in the battle being waged by General Electric, Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce to corner the maintenance market for their own products.
The 35,000m2 (378,000ft sq) engine shop already services RB211-535 engines, which power American's fleet of 90 Boeing 757s, and Tay 650 engines, which power its 75 Fokker F100s.
The US carrier says that there is still spare capacity at the huge plant, the engine side of which has always been dedicated to R-R, and it now hopes to attract far more third party work, which is currently limited to handling America West's Boeing 757s and occasional work for China Southern Airlines and China Southwest.
Source: Flight International
