ZURICH—SR Technics has opened its maintenance facility for the Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan (GTF) engine here in Zurich, while also completing the reconstruction of a reactivated second test cell in the Swiss city.
The announcements were made Sept. 19 at a ceremony held at SR Technics’ facilities close to Zurich Airport.
The Swiss MRO provider is now the 17th active repair shop in Pratt’s GTF network and will conduct full disassembly, assembly and testing on PW1100G-JM engines powering Airbus A320neo aircraft.
SR Technics signed a 10-year agreement to join the GTF network back in April 2022. The company has targeted around 1,000, although potentially more, engine shop visits over the life of the agreement after the ramp-up period is completed. It confirmed that the first GTF induction took place in July.
Pratt expects the 18th GTF shop in its network in 2025 and wants to up the number of facilities with capability for the new engine type to 30 by the end of the decade.
Over the past 18 months, SR Technics says it invested “double-digit million Swiss francs” into areas such as tooling, specialist maintenance equipment and reactivating the test cell. The test cell had been dormant for several years and was previously used to test JT8D engines. Now reactivated, the test cell will mostly focus on GTF engines but also has capability for CFM56-5B and -7B and Leap 1A and 1B engines, with test capacity for around 200 units annually.
The workforce ramp-up in Zurich will be gradual, says Florent Leforestier, SR Technics’ senior vice president of procurement, who led the industrialization of the GTF program. He adds that the company has sufficient numbers of trained workforce for the initial phase of the GTF. When it has completed several hundred shop visits, the company will grow its team with a need for 300 to 400 people to meet expected GTF workflows, Leforestier says.
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