Air NZ forced to trim schedule due to 787 engine maintenance

Air NZ will cancel six international flights and retime others between 7 and 10 December to accommodate urgent maintenance on the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines that power its Boeing 787-9 fleet. The carrier says that following two recent events, Rolls-Royce has advised that its fleet's Trent 1000 engines “require maintenance sooner than previously indicated”. “Rolls-Royce does not have any replacement engines available while this maintenance work is undertaken which means some schedule changes are unavoidable,” Air NZ adds. The schedule changes are primarily affecting services to Houston, Shanghai, Buenos Aires and Perth, and the carrier says it is focused on securing replacement aircraft capacity. New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission says on its website that it is investigating two “engine abnormality” incidents involving Air NZ 787-9s that occurred on 5 and 6 December. Both incidents involved the engines during climb on takeoff from Auckland, forcing them to turn back. The 5 December incident saw one of the engines shut down, while the second incident saw the crew reduced thrust on the suspect engine before returning to Auckland. Rolls-Royce says that it regrets the disruption caused to Air NZ, and the two parties are working together to restore full operations of the Trent 1000 engines as soon as possible. "It’s not uncommon for long-term engine programmes to experience technical issues during their life and we manage them through proactive maintenance," it adds.<br/>