Hawaiian Airlines announces route suspensions amid recalled engine inspections
HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Hawaiian Airlines announced Thursday it will be altering its flight schedule for the next couple months after some of its engines have been recalled for inspections.
Manufacturer company Pratt & Whitney recently recalled its PW1100G engines, which impacts Hawaiian Air’s Airbus A321neo fleet.
Hawaiian Air announced last week it would pause service between Kahului and Las Vegas from Aug. 5 to Aug. 31 in anticipation of engine checks.
Peter Ingram, president and CEO of Hawaiian Air, said the following services will be suspended starting early September:
- Services between Lihue and Oakland will be on pause from Sept. 6 through Dec. 14.
- Flights from Honolulu to San Jose on Saturdays, as well as flights from San Jose to Honolulu on Mondays, will be suspended from Sept. 9 through Jan. 8, 2024.
- Service between Kahului and San Jose on Sundays will also be suspended from Sept. 9 through Jan. 8, 2024.
Ingram said Pratt & Whitney informed them that engines manufactured within the time period of 2015 to 2021 will need to go through an “accelerated inspection” based on new data received on engine performance tests from other carriers.
The manufacturer said it’s engines need to be inspected for “microscopic cracks” due to a rare condition in the powdered metal used to produce some of the engines’ high-pressure turbine disks.
Ingram said five engines from their Airbus A321neo fleet will be taken in for the first batch of inspections. He emphasized that doesn’t necessarily mean five aircrafts will be taken out of service.
“Because we can move engines around to make as many airplanes whole and flyable as possible,” Ingram explained.
“The high likelihood is that the vast, vast majority of these engines are going to be fine. They’re going to be inspected, we’ll have the information to verify they’re fine, but it still affects us because this is an inspection because of where it is in the engine that it has to go into an overhaul shop, it has to be disassembled to perform the inspection and then reassembled. So there’s a fairly extended time period and it can’t be done on-wing in our hangars.”
Globally, over a thousand engines will need to be returned and checked, causing frustration for airlines during the peak summer travel season.
Hawaiian Air said in a statement: “We sincerely apologize to our impacted guests for the inconvenience and are working with them on alternative travel options.”
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