When Delta Air Lines announced a massive deal three years ago to bring the A321neo into its fleet the planes were just a part of the news. The maintenance support opportunity associated with the contract is huge, and Delta TechOps took a major step forward on that front late last month, completing the first comprehensive maintenance visit of a PW1100G-JM engine.
In 2019, we began our partnership with Pratt & Whitney as a world-class provider in their global GTF MRO Engine Network. The entire Delta family is proud of this first milestone as work was completed recently in our state-of-the-art expanded engine shop at our Technical Operations Center in Atlanta.
– Mike Moore, Delta’s Senior Vice President – Maintenance Operations & MRO Services
When it ordered the planes in December 2017 Delta chose the Pratt & Whitney Pure Power PW1100G GTF engine for the fleet. As part of that deal Delta Tech Ops signed on as a major maintenance, repair and overhaul provider for the PW1100G and PW1500G (CSeries) engines in the Americas. The deal was finalized in 2019 as the TechOps facility in Atlanta brought the GTF shop online. And now, with the first major overhaul, the Delta TechOps team was able to train and achieve certification on the PW1100G-JM procedures, advancing the engine overhaul business.
Delta TechOps did not secure an exclusive agreement with Pratt & Whitney but the deal is still expected to deliver more than $15 billion in revenue to the Delta TechOps division over time. CEO Ed Bastian explained the numbers in 2017, “You can do the math…call it $3mm [per engine] – that’s an order of magnitude number – and that’s $15bn.”
Our people and our purpose are all the more resolute in this challenging environment. We look forward to continuing to serve our MRO customers and strategic partners in the months and years ahead with our signature excellence and unwavering commitment to safety.
– Don Mitacek, Delta’s Senior Vice President – Technical Operations
That Delta deferred its initial A321neo deliveries will slow down some of that revenue. But it also slows the company’s cash outflow, a far more important consideration today. And, in the coming years, the MRO revenue will continue to flow. Ultimately it could effectively cover the capital costs for the A321neo order, depending on how the deals flow.
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