The major disruptions to date have NOT affected their upbeat profit guidance for FY18
Before we all get a little carried away with this new information. It's one thing for engines, (plural) to be imploding and fan blades cracking left right and centre and quite another for just a simple increase in frequency of an existing check from every 2000 cycles to every 300, a check that only takes a couple of hours.
Quote:
"The check involves looking at an area of the compressor, it is completed on wing (without removing the engine) and only takes a couple of hours."
Thoughts.
Doesn't sound like a major check to me.
AIR predominantly uses the newer engine variety on North American routes so these routes should be unaffected.
If ETOPS approval is reduced to 140 minutes they will have to redeploy Dreamliners on South American routes elsewhere in their network and substitute with 777 - 200 / 300 aircraft.
What has impressed me to date with this issue is that AIR have maintained increased forward guidance throughout the 787 disruption process which has included extensive use of other leased aircraft.
This would suggest to me in the absence of any other confirming data that the compensation coming from Rolls Royce is designed to ostensibly cover all or the vast majority of the disruption / costs incurred by AIR.
Two hour on wing engine inspections of an area of the intermediate compressor area of an engine every 300 cycles does not sound like a major disruptive factor but I would have to concede if the ETOPS certification is lowered this could be more problematic from a fleet utilization perspective however could lead to AIR having a legal claim for full replacement of these affected engines with the newer engine variant and compensation for damages incurred in the period leading up to replacement.
I think Rolls Royce are going to be taking the lion's share of the hit not AIR but I note RR shares fell by less than 1%.