By Rajesh Kumar Singh
CHICAGO (Reuters) – United Airlines said on Wednesday its Boeing 777-200 planes equipped with Pratt & Whitney (PW) engines are expected to return to service as early as in the first quarter of 2022.
The Chicago-based carrier had to ground the wide-body jets after a United flight to Honolulu suffered an engine failure and made an emergency landing in February in Denver.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered immediate inspections of Boeing 777 planes fitted with Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines after the incident. In August, the regulator said the safety review was ongoing.
Greg Hart, United’s executive vice president, strategy and planning, said while the company has not heard from the FAA, it expects the aircraft to return to service in the first quarter of next year.
“We have been working tirelessly with Boeing, Pratt & Whitney and the FAA over the past six months,” he said.
United is the only U.S. operator of 777s with the PW4000 engine and has 52 such planes.
The anticipated return of the planes is a key element of the company’s strategy to ramp up international capacity by 10% next year.
The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said in May the agency is going to mandate strengthening a key engine part on Boeing 777-200 planes with the PW4000 engines.
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson told a U.S. House committee that the agency is “requiring the manufacturers to address strengthen(ing) the cowling” and will issue an airworthiness directive.
The FAA said earlier this month in response to a report that United had begin modifications to those 777s that “all operators will be responsible for complying with the requirements in the Airworthiness Directive. Any work performed prior to that is subject to being affected by the” directive.
(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh; additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
