Against the grain

Since the PW4000 is the bread and butter of Pratt’s Singapore MRO, Eagle Services Asia – a joint venture with Singapore Airlines – you’d think the business would slowly be going into decline. Not so, says ESA’s managing director Kevin J. Kirkpatrick.

“We have grown the PW4000 business by about 5 per cent last year here in this facility… the PW 4000 overall fleet generally shrinks by about 6 per cent annually and in that declining market we have actually increased our market share. I don’t see any reason why that wouldn’t continue in 2016. For us that’s good and I think that really comes back to customers looking to the strength of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to provide very broad solutions, whether it’s in terms of speed or cost to their operations.”

Where is the extra business coming from in this declining market? Kirkpatrick explains that a number of customers have, over time, built up their own capability to service P & W engines in their own engineering shops.

“One of the things we see with the PW4000 engine is there are a lot of new engines coming into the industry. As these new engines come into the industry what tends to happen is those legacy customers switch over their capability to the newer engine models. So you tend to see those legacy carriers exiting that market. But the fact of the matter is they still have engines and they need somebody to service them.

So what could end up happening for our facility is we actually grow as the market comes down because those legacy carriers get out of that business and focus on other areas. That business then comes to us to service those needs. It’s a very unique dynamic for our 4000 business here, where it could grow as the industry shrinks.”

The PW4000 has been around for a long time. A high-bypass turbofan, it was first run in 1984 and variants have powered jets such as the Boeing B747-400, the B767 and B777, Airbus A300, A310 and A330 as well as the McDonnell Douglas MD-11. Kirkpatrick says it will still be around for a long time to come.

“When we talk about the 4000, even though it’s coming down that engine will fly for 20 more years. When you look at how the carriers are using that and especially the cargo operators, that engine will fly for 20 more years. We are seeing some of the very first overhaul of an engine cell. So we need to make sure that our capability on that existing fleet continues for a very long time. It’s going to just look a little bit different how we run that business. It will be a little bit more tailored solutions to customers. There will probably be higher serviceable content than in the past. So it will just look a little different, that’s all.”

Not that Pratt is ignoring the future. It already has capability to handle General Electric’s GE90 engine, a business it tends to increase. It is also currently gearing up to take on the Engine Alliance – a joint venture between P & W and GE – GP7000 engine, which powers many Airbus A380s.

“We will be a facility that will also overhaul various modules of that and will do the tear down and build up and test of that engine as well. We will start to do parts of that here in 2016,” says Kirkpatrick. Further down the track it will also bring in Pratt’s own geared turbofan engines, the GT90 and GT 7000.

“That engine will fly for 20 more years.”

As for the new manufacturing facility, it is something that really excites Kirkpatrick. “It’s our first manufacturing facility in Singapore. Most of our other facilities have always been MRO. The fan blade is a very advanced part of the geared turbofan. It’s one of the technologies we are most excited about. It’s a hybrid metallic blade and it will be produced here. It’s only the second facility in the world that will do that. It is just a sexy product. I’ve seen blades around in other places but the technology behind this, the weight of it, the way it functions in the engine, it is just unbelievably cool technology.”

Would Pratt follow in the footsteps of Rolls-Royce, which builds Trent 1000 engines in Singapore?

“I think we always consider opportunities. We have built a very close relationship with the Economic Development Board (EDB) of Singapore. I won’t say that we will and I won’t say that we won’t. We are always considering various alternatives where we want to do these type of operations.”