A220: Modern short-haul jet with engine problems
Published: Tuesday, Dec 24th 2024, 14:40
Updated At: Wednesday, Dec 25th 2024, 00:59
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The Swiss aircraft affected by an emergency landing in Graz (Austria) is an Airbus A220. The jet is considered modern and set new standards for fuel consumption when it entered service in 2016. However, the engines are the problem child. There have already been several incidents and the fleet has even been grounded.
The Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss operates 30 aircraft of the short-haul jet, 21 in the long-haul version and 9 in the short-haul version. The longer version has 145 seats and a range of over 6000 kilometers. According to the airline, fuel consumption is up to a quarter lower than comparable aircraft.
However, Swiss and other airlines such as Air Baltic can look back on a long history of suffering with the A220, primarily due to the engines from the US manufacturer Pratt & Whitney. In 2019, Swiss even grounded its A220 fleet and subjected it to an inspection.
This was preceded by three engine shutdowns within three months in the middle of cruise flights. An emergency committee had to evaluate whether and how safe flight operations could be ensured with the fleet.
Engine failures also affected other airlines. In 2019 and 2020, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued instructions requiring additional checks of Pratt & Whitney engines, among other things. In incidents, parts of the engine were ejected outwards due to a malfunction.
Pratt & Whitney made several improvements to the engines, including material and design modifications to increase reliability.
But just last year, almost one in three A220 Swiss jets had to be temporarily grounded again. Here too, Pratt & Whitney had problems with the engines. According to the Lufthansa Group, these were less reliable than expected. The airlines also had to contend with a shortage of spare parts, delivery problems and too few repair appointments.
The twin-engine short-haul aircraft was originally developed by Canadian manufacturer Bombardier as the CSeries. In 2018, the European Airbus consortium took over the program under the name A220.
©Keystone/SDA
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