Customer Feedback
Air Baltic
CONTINUING PARTNERSHIP WITH LUFTHANSA TECHNIK AERO ALZEY
The roots are stretching back to year 1998 when airBaltic started cooperation with Lufthansa Technic AERO Alzey (LTAA) for the Pratt & Whitney (PW125B) engine repairs. The PW125B turbo prop engines are powering the old good work horses - Fokker F50 aircrafts, which has left airBaltic fleet years ago leaving a place for more advanced and modern aircraft - Bombardier Q400 Next Generation. Today the story is about Q400 aircraft turbo prop engine PW150A. Exactly 5 years ago (April, 2013) was the first scheduled engine shop visit for PW150A took place in LTAA. The shop visit means the engine inspection / repair / overhaul in repair facility where exact amount of planned works are executed with purpose to identify and replace outworn parts and life limited parts. Since year 2013 in total 40 engines and 7 reduction gearboxes has undergone shop visits and being successfully repaired to highest industry standards. An integral part for each engine shop visit is the inspection of disassembled engine (used to call a "Table inspection") with airBaltic powerplant engineer participation to identify most effective work scope and to agree on additional works. When entire engine or its separate module is literally disassembled and each of component is cleaned and placed on table one by one – the table inspection begins. Full shop visit for each engine longs up to two months depending on each engine technical condition. airBaltic has leased 6 spare engines with a total usage for around 110 months to facilitate continues operations for Q400 fleet while airbaltic engines are being repaired. It is worth to mention that engine repair is quite an expensive exercise, approximately a total of 43 million USD have been paid for PW150 engines and reduction gearboxes repairs. Starting from April LTAA has a capability to perform repairs on CS300 aircraft PW1500 turbo fan engines, so we expect friendship to continue with LTAA for many more years.
airBaltic engineering expresses special thanks to LTAA Customer Support Engineer Reiner Hoffmann, responsible for airBaltic engines repair management for more than 15 years – he is really our man at LTAA!
Some interesting facts for PW150A engine:
• Engine removals for the 1st shop visits happens at 8000 – 10000 engine flight hours
• Currently in service world-wide can be found around 1300 PW150A engines
• PW150A are most powerful modern turboprop engine with 5000 Horse Power and used on Q400 aircrafts only
Its modification PW150B is used as well on Chinese commercial four engines freighter aircraft Y8F600. ... more
