Hawaiian Airlines faces the prospect of more disruptions to its plans due to further Airbus A321neo engine problems and another delivery delay for its first Boeing 787.
The carrier is one of many that have been forced to ground some of their A321neos due to long-term servicing backlogs for Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines. The carrier was seeing an improvement in engine availability recently, but now Pratt has revealed new issues with its GTF engine that will likely affect Hawaiian.
Pratt on July 25 said many of its GTF engines will have to be inspected sooner than anticipated due to a suspected manufacturing issue.
The previous backlog in heavy maintenance checks and lack of spare engine availability meant Hawaiian Airlines had up to five of its A321neos grounded at times, Hawaiian CEO Peter Ingram said during the carrier’s 2023 second quarter (Q2) earnings call.
However, more recently it has had “two and sometimes three” aircraft grounded, Ingram said. Until this week’s news from Pratt, Hawaiian was expecting to have no more than two aircraft out of service at once over the next few months, and then just one in the fourth quarter.
Now this plan is in question. Hawaiian is working with Pratt “to understand the specific impacts on our installed fleet,” Ingram said. “And in the days ahead, we will assess whether we must take any schedule action to mitigate [additional] aircraft shortages.”
“Even as the [engine] situation improved recently, we always knew that it remained dynamic,” Ingram said. “And while we receive financial compensation for unavailable aircraft, what we are really looking forward to is full availability of our fleet, an appropriate level of spare engines at our facilities, and a much more predictable operation.”
The long-running A321neo engine issues have constrained Hawaiian’s ability to increase its flying to match strong demand, said Brent Overbeek, the airline’s EVP and chief revenue officer. Given the latest news from Pratt, “it will likely be a few more quarters until we have the entire A321 fleet available,” he said.
It is not just the Airbus fleet that is causing planning headaches for Hawaiian. Ingram said the first delivery of its 787-9 orders has been delayed by a couple of months, following previous timetable slips.
The carrier was previously scheduled to receive its first 787-9 in November, with entry into service in January or February 2024. However, it is now expected to arrive in January. This will likely have a flow-on effect on subsequent 787 deliveries due in 2024.
In other fleet developments, Hawaiian in July took delivery of the first of 10 A330 freighters that it will operate for Amazon. The aircraft will be used for employee familiarization over the next few months, Ingram said.
Hawaiian reported that passenger demand remains strong, in terms of both its Q2 performance and in bookings for the second half of the year.
A particularly welcome sign is the recovery of demand on Hawaiian’s Japanese routes, which represent the carrier’s most important international market.
Japanese international leisure travel has been slow to rebound after COVID-19 travel restrictions were removed earlier in 2023. However, Ingram said that since early May “Japan outbound demand has accelerated meaningfully for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.”
Load factor and unit revenue on Japanese routes have now returned to pre-pandemic levels, Ingram said. However, he also noted that capacity in this market is still only at 70% of 2019 levels. Ingram said the Japanese major carriers are operating a similar proportion of their 2019 capacity on their Hawaii routes.
Despite the strengthening of international demand, Hawaiian still recorded a net loss of $12.3 million for Q2. This was an improvement from a $47.4 million net loss in the same quarter in 2022.
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