LATAM Airlines added five 787s to its order backlog. For the first time, the airline opted to equip the aircraft with GEnx rather than Rolls-Royce engines. Continue reading to learn more. LATAM Orders Five Boeing 787s On December 20,...
LATAM Airlines added five 787s to its order backlog. For the first time, the airline opted to equip the aircraft with GEnx rather than Rolls-Royce engines.
Continue reading to learn more.
Boeing 787s are the backbone of LATAM’s widebody fleet.
LATAM Orders Five Boeing 787s
On December 20, 2023, LATAM announced it added five more 787s to its Boeing order backlog. With that, the airline is set to have 46 787s in its fleet by the time all of the orders are fulfilled. As of June 2023, LATAM had 10 787-8s and 21 787-9s. The airline did not disclose the variant breakdown for the newly ordered five aircraft.
While all of LATAM’s existing 787s and 787s on order before the latest order are Rolls-Royce-powered, for the five ordered yesterday, the airline opted for General Electric’s GEnx engines. It will be South America’s first operator of the 787 with GE engines.
In addition to 787s, LATAM also operates 767s and 777s – its 56-strong passenger widebody fleet is exclusively Boeing. Its narrowbody fleet, on the other hand, is exclusively Airbus and consists of over 250 aircraft including A319ceos, A320ceos, A321ceos, A320neos, and A321neos.
Diversifying Engine Types on the Same Aircraft Type
Most major aircraft types can be equipped with more than one engine type. Airlines typically choose only one of the options when adding new aircraft types to their fleets, though. Doing so comes with the benefits of economies of scale – fewer engine types means fewer spare parts to keep on hand and so on.
In the case of the 787, there are two options: General Electric GEnx-1B or Rolls-Royce Trent 1000. As mentioned earlier, LATAM’s past 787 orders were for Trent 1000-powered ones and only the recently ordered five are GEnx-1B-powered.
If there are benefits in sticking with one engine option, why is LATAM diversifying?
The answer is engine problems and related groundings, which the airline experienced twice:
Some of its A320neos had to be grounded due to problems with Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines Some of its 787s had to be grounded due to issues with Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 enginesThe latter caused LATAM to go with GE engines rather than Rolls-Royce engines for the latest batch in spite of losing some of the advantages that come with only having one engine type across all airframes of the same type.
TANA and Air New Zealand opted for a similar strategy when they placed orders for GE-powered 787s after having first built fleets of Rolls-Royce-powered ones.
ANA is another airline that opted for GEnx engines after Trent 1000’s issues.
Summary
Latin America’s largest airline group – LATAM – just announced an order for five additional Boeing 787s, bringing its total up to 46 of which over 30 were already delivered.
What is more interesting than LATAM ramping up its 787 order is the fact that it opted for GEnx engines for the latest five rather than Trent 1000 engines. With that, LATAM became the latest airline to stay away from the troubled Rolls-Royce engines when deciding to grow its 787 fleet.
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