Wizz Air subsidiary Emirates is replacing most of its A321neo with older Airbus A321s because the new-generation Pratt & Whitney engines suffer from durability problems in hot climates.
Wizz Air Abu Dhabi will replace most of its Airbus A321neos equipped with new-generation Pratt & Whitney PW1133G-JM engines with older A321-200 engines from its fleet of Ten planes. Planes – written by CH-Aviation Portal.
Although the international Aero Engines V2500 has lower performance, higher fuel consumption and emissions compared to the next version, it represents a more mature technology that is less prone to unexpected failures.
The airline justified the move with engine problems that were already causing serious problems for many airlines with new generation engines. Due to high-temperature operating conditions similar to those in the Middle East, which are more demanding from an engine point of view, some affected engine parts wear out sooner than specified by the manufacturer, which increases maintenance requirements.
The availability of aircraft equipped with such resources is further reduced by slow service due to the intermittent supply of spare parts for the engines, as well as the low availability of replacement engines.
At the same time, Vardy emphasized that the problems of the new generation of Pratt & Whitney engines could be addressed at the group level.
“We are probably the only airline in the world that has not grounded planes because of engines,” he added, noting that this is down to luck as well as resource allocation and operating methods. Furthermore, the fact that the airline has been able to source a sufficient amount of replacement engines/parts and operates largely in European climatic conditions, which are more suitable for the engines.
According to online fleet tracking databases, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi currently has ten aircraft, of which eight are A321neo and two are older A321-200 models, the latter transferred from the Wizz Air Hungary fleet to the Middle East branch.
The Abu Dhabi-based airline did not receive its latest A321neo at the end of May, which was transferred to the Maltese subsidiary with registration number 9H-WDV (in our photo) and recently flew from the Budapest base, most likely due to the above decision.
As we wrote previously, Indian low-cost carrier Go First grounded flights in May in part because half of its A320neo-powered Pratt & Whitney fleet was inoperable and entered bankruptcy protection.
Many European airlines suffer from this problem, Swiss and Air Baltic recently had to ground part of their Airbus A220s with Pratt & Whitney engines. KLM had to realign its regional flight schedule due to the lack of Embraer E195-E2 aircraft equipped with a different version of the engine, operated by subsidiary Cityhopper, but Lufthansa also reported problems with its A320neo family aircraft equipped with this engine.
