Air Senegal will file a lawsuit against engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney for the financial loss Due To PW1524G-3 engines.

Not the best of times for the American aerospace manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, as over 50 Indigo and Go First A320 family aircraft were grounded in India due to P&W engine supply chain issues.

Additionally , ten Airbus A220s from EgyptAir in Egypt , and 2 A321neos from Hawaiian Airlines in the USA are on the ground due to engine problems. Adding to the woes, Air Senegal and Air Tanzania are considering legal actions against the subsidiary of the Raytheon Technologies.

Talking about the GTF family variants and usage , while Airbus A220 family uses PW1500G engines , Airbus A320neo makes use of PW1100G variant , Embraer E-Jet E2 family is installed with PW1700G & PW1900G and Russian Irkut MC-21 had opted for PW1400G, now defunct Mitsubishi SpaceJet programme once used PW1200G variant.

Senegal's Flag carrier Air Senegal is going to take legal action against Airbus A220-300 engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, which manufactures the PW1524G-3 engines used by the planes. The company announces that its aircraft have remained grounded in recent months due to technical problems.

While Air Senegal says, the GTF (Geared Turbofan Engine) engine problems on the A220 aircraft could not be fixed and it suffered financial loss, another A220 user, Air Tanzania, is expected to follow a similar path.

• Launched in March 2008, and tested in July 2008 , the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G, also called the GTF, is a high-bypass geared turbofan engine family produced by Pratt & Whitney.
• This is the only geared propulsion system , patented by the Pratt & Whitney in service.
• More than 1,100 aircraft operated by 62 carriers globally are using the PW1100G GTF engines , also with an excess of 10,000 orders and commitments from more than 80 customers.
• Pratt & Whitney unable to supply enough of the (upgraded versions) of PW1100G geared turbofan (GTF) engines.

An Air Senegal delegation was in Dar es Salaam this past week for discussions with Air Tanzania officials on how best to take on Pratt & Whitney, the American aerospace company that produces the PW1524G-3 engines used by the planes.

Both national carriers believe that the company is dragging its feet in resolving the longstanding issue of defective engines, leading to mounting losses for the airlines as their A220-300 fleets remain grounded.

According to Air Tanzania CEO Ladislaus Matindi, Airbus A220-300 aircraft problems had been uncovered by all airlines operating the planes worldwide, which in Africa includes EgyptAir.

Airbus A320-271N (Neo) aircraft with Pratt & Whitney GTF Advantage engine is at Iqaluit Airport , Nunavut, Canada for the Cold Weather Testing.

PW1500G Technical Issues !

• Dated 13 October 2018, a Swiss A220 engine was shutdown after a faulty O-ring seal on the engine’s fuel oil cooler led to a loss of oil pressure.
• Dated 25 July 2019, an Airbus A220-300 of Swiss International Air Lines had an engine inflight shutdown (IFSD) and diverted to Paris–Charles de Gaulle.The low-pressure compressor of its PW1500G disintegrated while climbing through 32,000 ft.
• Dated 16 September 2019, a similar accident happened just before reaching 35,000 ft and the crew returned to Geneva.The inspection showed that "stage-one rotor in the low-pressure compressor had separated and there was a hole in the compressor case". 
• Dated September 26, 2019 the FAA issued an Airworthiness Directive mandating borescope inspections on the engines.
• Dated15 October 2019, another engine failed and the crew diverted to Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Swiss withdrew its fleet for inspection.

Apart from engine defects, the shortfalls also include lack of alternative engines and the plane's body developing rust much sooner than intimated in its Maintenance Planning Document, thus elevating repair and maintenance costs.

“The PW1524G-3 engines made by Pratt & Whitney for A220-300 planes are supposed to be removed for maintenance after 5,260 landings but due to engine design defects they are removed before even 1,000 landings,” Matindi said.

As per Air Tanzania, the Pratt & Whitney will have to pay ATCL compensation as spelt out in the contract, but it has taken a long time now and now it is no longer the issue of compensation, instead it is about the mounting losses that the company is incurring.

The two airlines intend to take Pratt & Whitney to task for failure to fulfill its contractual responsibility to supply extra engines in the event of engine failures.

“We have been engaged in amicable negotiations with the company to fix the serious engine problems so that the planes can resume normal flight operations. But if amicable negotiations fail we could resort to legal action," he said, adding that negotiations also involve compensation for the losses incurred so far, although he did not quantify how much Air Tanzania was losing.

Air Tanzania was the first African airline to buy the Airbus A220-300 variant in the year 2018 and its current fleet of 12 aircraft includes four of those.

In another development, ATCL is set to receive 5 new planes, including a Boeing 767 cargo plane with a capacity of 54 tons that will be the first to be used in the country.

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