Thai Airways International has complained that its Rolls-Royce jet engines are spending more time than ever undergoing maintenance checks, adding to a chorus of criticism over the units.
Chief executive officer Chai Eamsiri said the engines powering its Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft are spending up to 120 days undergoing checks, significantly longer than the 90-day wait when the British manufacturer previously encountered similar delays.
“We send it for a shop visit and it doesn’t come back,” he said at an annual meeting of Asian airline executives in Brunei on Tuesday. “It used to be 90 days. Now it’s longer, toward 120 days.”
Rolls-Royce did not immediately respond to a Bloomberg request for comment.
Thai Airways’ comments on the increased wait times shed more light on the growing discontent among Rolls-Royce customers. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic Airways have suspended several routes over the past month due to a shortage of aircraft caused by the backlog.
On Monday, Rolls-Royce said it had formed a task force to address maintenance issues with its Trent 1000 engines used on the 787. The group is bringing together employees from operations, supply chain, engineering, technology and planning teams to speed up maintenance on the engine model.
Thai Airways has fewer than 10 Rolls-powered 787s but one is currently grounded without engines, according to Mr Chai.
He said he was not sure about the details of the renewed delays but he noted that Rolls-Royce seems to be facing too much demand for maintenance visits from “every airline”, with the engines spending fewer hours flying and more time in the shop.
The situation is “not getting worse but it should be better”, he said.
The national carrier’s previous struggles with Rolls-Royce engines led it to pick General Electric units for the 45 Boeing 787 Dreamliners that it ordered earlier this year.