Pratt & Whitney Prepares to Talk Technology, Solutions at MRO Europe

The world of aviation soon descends upon the Netherlands' capital of Amsterdam for the annual MRO Europe, globally one of the premier events for commercial air transport maintenance, overhaul and repair.

Paul Finklestein is the director of Marketing at Pratt & Whitney.

Paul Finklestein: This year will have particular emphasis on the GTF because the airplane has entered into service and there still is a lot of buzz about the GTF. Relative to last year at this time, we have delivered 20 airplanes across both the [A320]neo and the C Series platform and the engine is doing absolutely terrific. We've saved over a million gallons of fuel so far, carried over a million passengers and we've had dispatch reliability of 99.9 percent.

Tied to the GTF will be the discussion of what is known as Big Data.

Paul Finklestein: We've captured more data than we've ever seen in a short amount of time.

New engines have the capability of sharing almost an infinite amount of information about the power plant's performance and efficiency - customers want it and Pratt & Whitney keeps its promise to deliver it.

Paul Finklestein (on Big Data): They understand that in the past what we have done is looked at one snapshot at climb, one snapshot at cruise and one snapshot during descent; so very limited steady-state data. Big Data for us is a really new initiative that we put a lot of emphasis on that takes the technical expertise of our engineers, combines it with all the data that we are acquiring onboard, making sure we look at that data and anticipate anything that can happen in the future to prevent any operational issues well in advance. That's why we say when you look at our ad, 'the more we look at your engine, the better you see it. It is all about understanding the data, getting it into the hands of the experts and having them interpret it for you.

While Pratt & Whitney's newest technological offerings are the hot topic, solutions to keeping mature engine programs on-wing are also offered by company experts.

Paul Finklestein: The engagements we will have with customers during the MRO show will be anywhere from people still flying JT8Ds, JT9Ds, PW4000s, V2500s or people gearing up for the GTF.

These are the conversations Paul enjoys, highlighting the innovative thinking and advancement of a premier aviation powerhouse.

Paul Finklestein: At the end of the day, you feel pretty good that somebody had a good day and you really could explain the new technology that only Pratt & Whitney has developed.