Factors such as lower fuel prices and continued traffic growth are prompting airlines to keep aircraft in service longer. As a result, airframes and engines are changing hands more often during their working lives, driving demand for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services and ramping up operators’ expectations for greater flexibility in aftermarket support.
Broadly speaking, these were the circumstances that inspired GE Aviation to launch its TrueChoice engine maintenance packages back in April. The engine maker now offers operators four sets of options for supporting their powerplants, with variations in pricing and service levels to reflect the more complex lifecycle of products in today’s air transport market.
According to Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of GE Aviation Services, the company expects around 35 to 40 percent of its customers to opt for the TrueChoice Flight Hour option, providing a way to spread the cost of ownership over an engine’s lifecycle with flexible risk transfer and payment options based on fixed rates per flight hour or cycle. The new TrueChoice Overhaul option is well suited to mid-life to mature engines, covering time and materials costs for engine overhauls with specified workscope rates to suit an operator’s particular situation, as well as scrap rate guarantees. TrueChoice Material covers new and used parts for advanced repairs and upgrades that could extend engine life and residual values. TrueChoice Transitions is intended for engines that are subject to changing ownership, such as those under green time leases or exchanges.
McAllister told AIN that GE is committed to giving operators maximum freedom of choice when it comes to choosing MRO providers or, in cases where they have their own MRO capability, maximum opportunity to generate income supporting the engines of third parties. GE believes this is a key differentiator with the aftermarket business models of rival engine manufacturers Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney, which it says are mainly seeking to keep operators in their own OEM programs. “People need to be nimble these days, and as an OEM, we have to stay focused on providing the lowest life cycle costs for our engines,” he said. “We can’t just assume oil prices will stay where they are now forever.”
With that in mind, GE (Outdoor Exhibit P2) continues to invest heavily in technology that will improve both time-on-wing (since service entry) and fuel efficiency. The manufacturer has been making technology upgrades available to its installed base of turbofans, including improved aerodynamic efficiency, and more durability in materials, cooling and coatings. These are available through upgrade kits for existing models such as the Boeing 777 family’s GE90-115B and the GE90-94B engines, improving time-on-wing by around 15 percent and reducing fuel burn by between 1.3 and 1.6 percent.
Another aspect of GE’s focus on reducing engine lifecycle costs is harnessing so-called Big Data—an exercise that it says involves a marriage of analytics and physics. GE Aviation is working with sister company GE Digital to more thoroughly analyze and share the large quantities of performance data now being gathered from its engines. The main aim is to improve the ability of operators and MRO providers to predict performance trends that could result in greater reliability and a more cost effective approach to product support. o
