Eagle Services Asia Builds on Joint Pratt & Whitney and SIA Engineering Legacies

Challenges abound for Singapore-based Eagle Services Asia as it works to satisfy its main customer-Singapore Airlines, whose SIA Engineering division holds 49% of the joint venture-while pursuing third-party heavy engine overhauls on non-Pratt products. And to accentuate the challenge, Eagle Services Asia has been kept busy with an FAA Airworthiness Directive targeted at high-pressure compressor surge events in the PW4000 during the critical takeoff and climb phases of flight

Eagle Services Asia specializes in maintaining the PW4000 (primarily the 68,000-pounds-thrust PW4056) and the JT9D family. The facility overhauls

The company's most recent capability is the General Electric/Snecma CFM56-5C, which flies on Singapore Airlines' fleet of Airbus A340s, and accounts for the final 10% of the company's business.

"That business has grown to four-to-five engines per month, and we're looking to expand," said Jim Guiliano, managing director, Eagle Services Asia. "The CFM market is competitive, and we've set up a dedicated business unit."

That unit will maintain Singapore Airlines' engines, and will actively pursue third-party work-particularly with Chinese airlines.

Pratt's gain over other third-party CFM engine maintainers, says Guiliano, lies in its relationship with Singapore Airlines though SIA Engineering. "One advantage we're building on is Singapore's fleet, and we can demonstrate we've worked the engine in large numbers and have squeezed efficiency."

Eagle Services Asia has an approximately 60-day turnaround time for heavy workscope on the CFM56, with a target of 45 days by the end of 2002. Guiliano said the Singapore facility is installing Pratt's ACE (Achieving Competitive Excellence) quality-oriented program into the engine shop so the entire operation is built around efficient work cells. The realignment of the maintenance operations should be complete by mid-2002.

While ACE is being targeted at Eagle Services Asia's CFM56 capabilities, its initial applications are on the facility's bread-and-butter engine-the lower-thrust PW4000. Singapore Airlines operates more than 50 PW4000-powered aircraft, one of the largest such fleets in the world.

The heavy maintenance cycle for the PW4000 extends 60-70 days at Eagle Services Asia, and Guiliano said a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system now being installed in Singapore will go a long way to helping the company get a handle on spare parts, and bring PW4000 turntimes down by one to two weeks.

It also helps that SIA Engineering is implementing the same system at its facilities in Singapore.

"SIA is not a disinterested party in this," said Guiliano. "Our interface to them will be seamless, and it will give us a service advantage in the long run."

By Barry Rosenberg