Rolls-Royce’s 787 jet glitch ‘seriously disruptive’ to Virgin

Bloomberg

All 15 Boeing Co. 787 Dreamliner jets operated by Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. are affected by faults with Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc engines that power the wide-body planes, according to the carrier.
Grounding the Trent 1000 turbines for fixes has been “seriously disruptive,” forcing Virgin to find a number of workarounds, including calling on partner Delta Air Lines Inc. and leasing extra aircraft, Shai Weiss, the UK company’s chief financial officer, said in an interview in London. As many as three of the 258-seat 787-9s have been taken out of service at one time.
Durability issues with components used in the Dreamliner engine and the Trent 900 that powers Airbus SE’s A380 superjumbo cost Rolls-Royce 227 million pounds ($314 million) in charges in 2017 and wiped 170 million pounds from cash flow, the London-based manufacturer said.
The cash impact could double this year as maintenance activity peaks, and the re-design of problem parts won’t be fully incorporated in the 787 fleet until 2022, Rolls-Royce said. It estimated in August that as many as 500 Trent 1000s—which compete with General Electric Co.’s GEnx turbines on the 787—would need early maintenance because of wear issues affecting the fan blades.

Virgin’s Alternatives
After initially relying on Atlanta-based Delta, which has a 49 percent stake in Virgin, to operate some flights on its behalf while engines received attention, the UK carrier is taking delivery of four 287-seat Airbus A330-200 planes to provide spare capacity, with two already in service.
The leased aircraft, which will be used on flights from Manchester, England, were previously operated by defunct German airline Air Berlin Plc and are being painted in Virgin’s livery while retaining their old layout, with the edition of a premium-economy cabin. The planes are on leases as long as four years and may be retained even after the Trent 1000 work is completed, providing a significant boost in capacity.
Virgin has also brought a retired Airbus A340-600 plane back into service to help improve “operational resilience” in peak travel period travel periods.
Asked whether Virgin Atlantic— one of the half-dozen biggest global customers for the 787-9 version of the twin-engine Dreamliner—has been paid compensation for the upheaval, Weiss said the carrier is holding “commercial discussions in private.”
A spokesperson for Rolls-Royce said that the company is working closely with Virgin Atlantic and all customers affected by the Trent 1000 issue to minimise disruption.

‘Brexit no threat to US-UK Open Skies’
Bloomberg

Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd. said it’s “not at all” concerned that Brexit poses a threat to the US-UK Open Skies treaty on which European and US carriers rely for unfettered access to trans-Atlantic routes.
CEO Craig Kreeger told Bloomberg he was in Washington for talks with representatives of the two governments and “heard enough” from both sides to be sure that reaching an agreement on extending the current liberal arrangements won’t be an issue.
“I am not even remotely worried about the US-UK negotiations,” Kreeger said in London.
“I’m very confident that we will find our way to a very nice solution for the US-UK bilateral.”
Kreeger spoke following reports that the US has offered Britain a more limited aviation accord than it has as a member of the European Union. The main stumbling block in negotiations is that the federal government is using a template that has less generous terms than the Open Skies deal with the EU . UK and US officials aim to resolve the differences and reach agreement soon so that airlines can continue to operate with ease after Britain quits the EU in March, the people said. A potential sticking point is a standard US requirement that foreign airlines be majority owned by citizens of the country where they’re based. Virgin is 51 percent controlled by British founder Richard Branson, but with Air France-KLM Group set to take a major holding his stake is set to drop to 20 percent. Delta Air Lines Inc. owns 49 percent of Virgin.
Kreeger said he’s far more concerned about the aviation regime likely to result from negotiations between the UK and EU, though Crawley, Virgin Atlantic is insulated from any upheaval by the fact that it has no European flights.