Air New Zealand boss Greg Foran said the maintenance issue “does not present a safety issue”.Credit:Peter Rae
Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran said there were no safety concerns but noted it would affect his company’s 17 A320/321NEO aircraft,as well as 700 engines across other airlines globally over the next three years,with the effect most keenly felt in the coming year.
In July,Pratt&Whitney’s parent company RTX Corp said a “rare condition” in powdered metal had led to 1200 of its engines,built for the Airbus A320NEO between 2015 and 2021,needing to be inspected for micro cracks.
Foran said most customers whose flights had been changed would still fly on the same day. Some passengers on international flights would be moved to a service one day either side of their original booking,while others may have a cabin change due to a change of aircraft.
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“We’ve been able to reorganise most our schedule by consolidating some flying and moving aircraft to different routes,” he said,adding that customers would be contacted in the coming weeks.
However,Foran said the airline had taken a “difficult decision” to pause two of its international routes:flights connecting Auckland and Hobart from April 5 and flights connecting Auckland to Seoul from April 1.
“The pause on flying to Seoul is to allow more resiliency when the Trent1000 engines that power our 787 fleet go for regular maintenance due to potential issues with the availability of spare engines from Rolls-Royce to cover the maintenance period,” he said.