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Credit: Delta TechOps

How our partnership with Delta TechOps helps passengers arrive at their destination on time

Just metres from Atlanta airport’s passenger terminals, an enormous aircraft hangar bustles with activity. This epic 2.5 million square foot facility is Delta TechOps’ maintenance, repair and overhaul base, which now includes a new state-of-the-art 127k square foot engine shop that has been modified and is dedicated to support Rolls-Royce Trent engines for airline customers around the world.

“Our one common goal is to ensure that aircraft push away from the gate with no delays and take off on time,” says Ken Evers, Product Line Manager, Delta TechOps.

Keeping passengers moving is the top priority, and with thousands of Delta aircraft taking off and landing just outside the hangar, the team are completely focussed on minimising maintenance-related delays.

Credit: Delta TechOps

So how does this work in practice?

Engine maintenance, repair and overhaul, or MRO, ensures engines perform at their optimum level. This ensures reliability, reducing any flight delays or cancellations caused by the engine, and means engines operate as efficiently as possible, which reduces emissions and fuel costs for airlines.

At Delta TechOps, engines from Delta Air Lines and other operators come in for a full overhaul, or a less radical, more frequent ‘shop visit’ or partial overhaul. The service required is based on the number of flight cycles an engine has completed.

Regulatory bodies such as EASA and the FAA closely monitor operators to ensure that maintenance work is completed on time and as instructed. After a visit, engines are given an Airworthiness Certificate before they return to service.

What is a flight cycle?

A flight cycle means one take-off and one landing. The first Trent XWB engines will have their first full overhaul after more than four years in service. Recently, a Trent 700 was so reliable, it set a world record, flying for the equivalent of five years non-stop without requiring an overhaul!

At a full overhaul, engineers take the engine apart, replace parts that show signs of wear and tear, clean it, then put the engine back together and inspect and test it extensively before it re-enters service.

Credit: Delta TechOps

Working in partnership works

Our partnership with Delta TechOps has been instrumental in increasing maintenance capacity for the Trent engine family, starting with the Trent 1000. It will go onto provide services for the Trent XWB and Trent 7000, and supports Rolls-Royce’s wider services strategy to develop an increasingly capable, competitive and flexible CareNetwork.

“Delta TechOps are playing an important role in helping us remedy issues on the Trent 1000,” said Lewis Prebble, SVP Customers – Americas at Rolls-Royce. “Their unwavering focus on passengers supports our vision that every Rolls-Royce powered aircraft departs and lands on time, every time, as efficiently as possible.”

Providing even more capability to the Rolls-Royce service network, Delta TechOps opened the largest test cell in the world earlier this year. The test cell was commissioned (a process where engines are put through their paces to ensure all the cell’s technology is running smoothly) with a Trent XWB engine.

It’s capable of testing engines reaching up to 150,000lbs of thrust, which in practice means our latest, most sophisticated large civil aircraft engines including the Trent XWB, Trent 1000 and Trent 7000.

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