Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) will retain its growing fleet of A320neo twinjets on domestic German routes until problems with the aircraft's Pratt & Whitney PW1100G powerplants have been resolved Chief Executive Officer Carsten Spohr has said.
The German carrier has been operating D-AINA (cn 6801) on flights between Frankfurt International, Munich, and Hamburg Helmut Schmidt since its arrival late last month with sistership D-AINB (cn 6864) set to join it in service later this week.
An unforgiving Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad International) CEO Akbar al Baker, however, has taken an aggressive stance insofar as the problematic engine is concerned. Speaking during the Singapore Airshow 2016, he warned Pratt & Whitney that his airline may cancel orders for its powerplants if the problems are not resolved. As such, according to Al Arabiya news, he has now given the American aerospace manufacturer an unspecified number of months to rectify the problem.
“I don’t want to get into the detail but Qatar Airways will not accept an aircraft with those engines unless they are very much corrected. Otherwise we have no alternative but to look at an alternate engine supply,” he said. “We will not cancel the A320neo order. Our relations with Airbus are very strong. We have full confidence in the neo program but yes, we could cancel the entire Pratt & Whitney order. According to them, they're on the way to correct these issues, but I have no confidence unless I see it really happen.”
The Qatari carrier was the type's original launch operator but deferred the position to Lufthansa when it became apparent the PW1100G would not perform to its full spec on delivery.
For its part, Pratt & Whitney's president Robert Leduc has said that he expects the bulk of the flaws with the engine's software to be fixed by April.
