Rolls Royce is facing turbulence over 787 engine issues which have left airlines short of spare engines.
Air New Zealand has been forced to ground three of its 787s due to a worldwide shortage of Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines.
The grounding comes after the airline had two engine events forcing turnbacks over the past two days where the engines shed turbine blades.
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In a statement just issued the airline said:
“Air New Zealand advises that it will be retiming some international flights and making a limited number of cancellations over coming weeks as a result of two recent events involving the Rolls-Royce engines on its Boeing 787-9 aircraft.
“Rolls-Royce has advised that some of the Trent 1000 engines in the airline’s Boeing 787-9 fleet require maintenance sooner than previously indicated.
“Rolls-Royce does not have any replacement engines available while this maintenance work is undertaken which means some schedule changes are unavoidable.
“In addition to these changes, Air New Zealand is focused on securing replacement aircraft capacity.
“Customers affected by these changes will be proactively contacted with new travel information. In addition to this, the latest available information on any schedule changes will be published in the Travel Alerts section of the Air New Zealand website. Customers are encouraged to check this first before calling the airline’s contact centre.”
All Nippon Airways and Virgin Atlantic are also impacted.
Rolls Royce has been contacted for comment.
