Air New Zealand faces prolonged Pratt & Whitney engine issues

Air New Zealand said problems with certain Pratt & Whitney engines are forcing it to make schedule changes that could impact services for as long as two years.

The issue affects maintenance of the geared turbofan jet engine fleet, Air New Zealand said Tuesday. The airline uses the engines on 17 aircraft that operate to Australia, the Pacific Islands and on main trunk domestic routes and must now have them serviced much sooner than expected.

“While this maintenance issue does not present a safety issue, it has caused Air New Zealand to revise its flight schedule as a result of adjustments made to the engine maintenance plan,” Chief Executive Office Greg Foran said in a statement. “Due to engine availability as a result of the maintenance issues, the airline will have up to four aircraft grounded at any one time.”

Airlines globally have been impacted by required checks on Pratt’s geared turbofan engines. Japan’s ANA Holdings Inc. said last month it will need to inspect Pratt engines on 33 of its Airbus SE narrowbody jets and would seek compensation from the company, a unit of RTX Corp.  

The issues stem from contaminated metal powder entering the manufacturing process and potentially affecting internal engine parts made between 2015 and 2021.

Air New Zealand is responding by consolidating some flying and moving aircraft to different routes. 

Foran told Radio New Zealand that about 150,000 passengers booked on affected routes between now and April may face disruptions to their travel plans, adding the airline is in talks with Pratt & Whitney about compensation.

Leasing additional aircraft is an option Air New Zealand is looking at closely.  

Some international travelers will be transferred to services a day either side of their original booking and some may have a cabin change due to a different aircraft being used, the airline said.

Air New Zealand is also pausing its direct flights to Hobart in Australia, and to Seoul from April “to ensure we can deliver a reliable service across the rest of our network and get customers on our most in-demand routes to where they need to be,” it said.