News
Air New Zealand leases A330/A340 capacity amid Trent 1000 issues
December 15th 2017
Auckland-headquartered Air New Zealand was thrown a curveball last week when two of its B787-9s had to be grounded to carry out urgent maintenance on the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines powering the aircraft. Read More »
To cover for the capacity shortfall, the Star Alliance member on Monday announced it would wet-lease an A330-200 and an A340-300 from Portuguese ACMI specialist, Hi Fly, from December 18. The two Airbus wide bodies will be rostered to fly Air New Zealand’s Auckland-Sydney and Auckland-Perth services.
Last week, the carrier had to cancel and retime numerous flights because of the Trent 1000 failures.
“Once these two additional [Hi Fly] aircraft are in service we will be able to operate a near normal timetable,” said the airline’s customer experience general manager, Anita Hawthorne.The groundings come at a crucial time for the airline, right before the month-long southern hemisphere peak holiday season.
“We are acutely mindful of how important travel is to so many of our customers at this time of the year and we are committed to ensuring we connect people with family, friends and the experiences they are looking forward to,” Hawthorne said. “Equally, it is a critical time of year for our cargo customers, so giving them certainty in continuing to move goods internationally is important.”
On December 5 and 6, two Trent 1000-powered B787-9s en route to Buenos Aires and Tokyo’s Narita International Airport had to return to Auckland after the flight crews were alerted to “abnormal indications on one of the engines”. Passengers reported they felt the aircraft shake and that electrical power was temporarily lost.
Thai Airways International, All Nippon Airways (ANA), British Airways and Virgin Atlantic also have experienced problems with Trent 1000s, facts the manufacturer has acknowledged. A major Trent 1000 problem appears to be premature corrosion of the blades in the turbine, which requires the engine to be shut down. As a result, effected airlines have had to take several aircraft out of service and subsequently cancel flights while the damaged engines enter their MRO cycle earlier than scheduled.
