A fifth of the S7 Airlines fleet is idle on the ground
The Kommersant publication reported problems with S7 Airlines: the airline is forced to reduce its autumn-winter schedule due to difficulties with repairing American Pratt & Whitney engines installed on Airbus A320 and Airbus A321neo airliners. According to a source close to the airline, the schedule reduction is due to scheduled maintenance of the aircraft. At the same time, 21 of S7 Airlines’ 103 airliners are not flying.
S7 Airlines Airbuses are equipped with Pratt & Whitney PW1000G (GTF) engines; they are produced in smaller quantities than the French-American CFM Leap, which is installed on Airbus aircraft of other carriers – Aeroflot and Ural Airlines. Therefore, for example, Aeroflot has only one Airbus A321neo idle.
S7 Airlines reduced transportation due to difficulties servicing Airbus A320 and Airbus A321neo
According to Dmitry Voskresensky, a representative of Willis Lease Financial Company (the largest lessor of Rolls-Royce, General Electric, and CFMI engines), repairing a GTF engine is a complex process: if Leap is serviced by three or four branches in the world, then GTF is only serviced by P&W itself. At the same time, the GTF has many “childhood diseases” (it began to be produced in 2016, Leap – in 2013), such engines need to be serviced once every 3-4 years.
According to one of Kommersant’s sources, S7 was going to sell more than 20 aircraft abroad, but this requires permission from the Ministry of Transport, which, does not exist. The company itself stated that it did not apply for the export of aircraft abroad.
What is the way out of the situation? So far, he is not. “ There was a discussion with the Ministry of Transport about the specifics of servicing P&W engines on neo, and several meetings were held to discuss how these issues could be resolved,” said a source close to the company.
