Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbofan Is Poised To Emerge From The Pandemic In Great Shape (From Forbes)

Nobody at Pratt & Whitney, the engine business of Raytheon Technologies, is going to remember 2020 as a good year for the company. Commercial sales are way off. But the military side of the house is going gangbusters with engines for Air Force fighters, bombers and tankers. Meanwhile, Pratt has used pandemic downtime to raise the dispatch rate of its Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine on the Airbus A320 to an astounding 99.98%. It has also proven that all the performance gains promised for GTF are really there: the engines save 100 gallons of fuel per flight hour compared with legacy engines, they reduce carbon dioxide emissions by one metric ton per hour, and they generate much less noise than conventional turbofans. The benefits for operators and passengers are tremendous, including enabling single-aisle jetliners to fly transoceanic routes. I have written a commentary for Forbes here.