Greek carrier Aegean Airlines is expecting to reach, by the end of this year, a compensation agreement with Pratt & Whitney over disruption arising from engine inspections on its Airbus A320neo-family jets.
Speaking during a 24 November briefing, Aegean chair Eftichios Vassilakis said the airline had been holding “significant discussions” with the manufacturer, but that the offers received for mitigating the cost “do not yet come to our full satisfaction”.
He says there is a cost and efficiency effect from the carrier’s having to resort to using older A320s rather than the A320neos.
The PW1100G engines are having to be inspected earlier than scheduled owing to powder metal contamination during component manufacture.
Vassilakis says the airline has 28 A320neo-family jets and will have 31 by around July next year.
But he expects an average of 10 to be grounded throughout the course of 2024. Given that the carrier has 32 older Airbus single-aisle jets, the issue effectively means one aircraft in six will be out of service.
This projection for 2024 is “quite solid”, he says, but the situation for 2025 is uncertain.
Vassilakis states that the airline is implementing remedies to balance the fleet shortfall, including procuring extensions for five A320s which had been due to expire.
Aegean is also reducing charter capacity by four aircraft which, he says, will mean this activity will be “quite low” next year – reduced from six aircraft to two. But he adds that three of the four aircraft affected were not operating out of Greece, which means the impact on the core market is minimised.
Vassilakis says the airline had expected 6-8% growth in capacity for 2024, but this will fall to 2-4%.
The carrier is expanding on its fleet modernisation, taking the number of new aircraft from 46 to 50 by exercising options on three and taking another from a lessor.
Vassilakis says Aegean is also converting five of the remaining Airbus jets on order to the larger A321neo.
This will mean 29 of the eventual 50 new aircraft will be A321neos. Vassilakis states that the additional seats provided by the variant have proven “valuable”.
Aegean has taken delivery of 28 A320neo-family aircraft and the order change means another 22 are still to arrive.
