The Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine issues are expected to persist through next year, said Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss, speaking at a conference in the UK on November 25, 2024.
A spokesperson for the company confirmed that Weiss said the company has been “dealing” with the engine issue, which powers its 787 Dreamliner fleet, for “a very long time” - since the launch of the aircraft. The Dreamliner entered into service in 2011. “The Trent 1000 engine has not been a good engine,” Weiss said, adding that the engine required over three times as much attention as other engines.
Weiss assumed the engine will “persist during the whole year” in 2025. As a result, the airline is reducing its schedule to circumvent the issues, which he said will impact financial performance.
A spokesperson for Rolls-Royce said the current situation with the engines are not caused by technical issues with the engine, but rather the global supply chain constraints that have been impacting the industry as a whole.
“This is due to the current challenging industry wide supply chain constraints,” the spokesperson said to Airline Economics. "We continue to work with all our customers to minimise the impact of the limited availability of spare parts. All of the companies in our industry are suffering from this.
“The Trent 1000 is an important engine for our customers and our business. Its reliability is proven, with over 19 million in service flying hours since its entry into service in 2011.”
At the start of the year, Rolls-Royce laid out its plans for a £1bn durability improvement plan for the Trent engine family - including the Trent 1000. In its second quarter 2024 report, the engine manufacturer said testing had commenced for the high-pressure compressor turbine (HPT) blade, which will “more than double the time-on-wing” for the Trent 1000 and Trent 7000 engines.
“We have been taking decisive action and moving quickly to prioritise the resources needed to reduce the impact created by the current industry wide supply chain constraints - it is the highest priority for our civil aerospace division,” the spokesperson continued.
The spokesperson said the Trent 1000 task force has working over the past year to deliver improvements on the engine. They further added that the first stage of the durability enhancement package for the engine is “in the final stages of certification” as part of the £1bn investment programme.
Additionally, improvements are being made to its XWB-84 engine that will also further improve its fuel burn efficiency. The XWB-84 engines power the A350 aircraft. A new upgraded XWB-84 is set to enter service next year.