APTN Zoom Calls on Aircraft Engines and APU's

APTN (Aircraft Professional's Technical Network) has, over the last number of months, hosted weekly Zoom calls on various aircraft technical issues where we talk to various stakeholders in the aircraft technical sphere and ask them about their experience with the Covid-19 situation and how they are managing to deal with it. Participating on each call are invited aircraft lessor technical managers, airline technical staff as well as APTN members.

Subscribe to future Zoom Calls at this link : https://bit.ly/APTN_subscribe

In this article we focus on the two Zoom calls that took place on Thursday 6th April and on 14th May respectively where we looked at Aircraft Powerplant and APU issues.

Aircraft Lessors attending on the call included CALC, Nordic, GOAL, Arena Capital, BBAM, Merx, SMBC, ABL Aviation, JSA, Worldstar, CDB, NAC, and Macquarie. Airlines participating were Cityjet and Norwegian. APTN Enterprise Members also on the call included MK Industries, Six West, Castlelake and Aircraft Finance Germany (AFG).

The first report and presentation on 6th april was from Tony Hammersley, Business Development Director at EURAM, an engine teardown specialist and engine parts supplier based in Ireland. Tony's report available here, outlined the issues facing the engine parts suppliers during the current crisis and concluded with the upbeat note that there will be more demand for USM from the engine MRO's as new material from OEM's remains in short supply and more aircraft and engines are torn down.

Secondly we had an overview of the engine leasing market in the current Covid-19 crisis from Aoife Fennell, Senior Vice President Technical at ELFC . Aoife explained how engine utisilations were down and how this affects cashflows, maintenance reserves and engine life cycle expectations. In addition there is a lot of discussion with lessees about engine preservation, and on this call we heard from ELFC and some lessors participating how OEM's are reacting to the preservation challenges that the high volume of parked aircraft poses to the industry.

The ELFC presentation, available here, touched on the crisis recovery timeline, engine re-possessions and their associated logistic challenges as well as engine MRO demand and engine retirements. As with any previous crisis, Aoife concluded, there will be opportunities as well as challenges for all engine lessors and ELFC is well placed to handle these.

A podcast of this 1st APTN Engine Zoom call is available to listen to at this Spotify Link.

In the 2nd Powerplant session we focused on engine borescope, MRO, engine management and APU topics.

In this 2nd session Owen Bagnell from Aero Inspection International opened proceedings with a very informative and interesting talk on engine borescope inspection. Owen explained what 'full gas-path borescope' consisted of and how this can be misinterpreted by some lessors, lessees, and other parties. He also explained the pros and cons of 'Rigid' versus 'Flexi' borescope inspections and concluded with some good examples of engine damage and how results can be interpreted differently. A copy of the Aero Inspection presentation is available here.

The next report and presentation was from Pierre Berthelot, Head of Product Management, Engine Services at SR Technics in Zurich. Pierre outlined how an engine shop can set up and handle inductions with social distancing in mind and explained how inductions are still flowing freely as supply chains are still mostly unaffected by Covid-19. Pierre also intimated there were opportunities for cost savings in shop visits in the current climate as more used serviceable material (USM) can be utilised in some shop events. The SR Technics presentation is available here.

We then had a report from Brion Patt who is President and MD at Aviation Management LLC, a specialist engine management company based in California. Brion spoke about the challenges of Engine Lease Returns during Covid-19 times. These include remote working, resource, and location issues. Brion identifies 4 key stakeholders in the process. He also sees that a solid comprehension of the lease contract and familiarity with the various record management systems as key components to help reduce costs in a successful and efficient engine lease return. Brion's presentation can be accessed here .

Finally, we had an overview of the Auxilliary Power Unit (APU) market in Covid-19 times from Mike Redmond CEO of Aerospares Industries Auxilliary Power (AIAP). The APU sector has some unique aspects compared to the engine market which Mike explained clearly. In particular the maintenance and preservation of APU's on stored aircraft, for particular models, can be an issue. Mike also expressed his opinion on the values of APU's currently and where they are going in the near future. The presentation from AIAP is also available here.

This APTN Zoom call in its entirety can be listened to on a podcast at this Spotify Link.

We encourage anybody involved in aircraft technical in commercial aviation to become ATP members of APTN.aero. Joining is easy here: https://portal.aptn.aero

Look forward to seeing you on future Zoom calls and in workshops in the not too distant future.