VIVAERO

Rolls-Royce Trent 7000: the engine powering A330neo's success

The Rolls-Royce Trent family of widebody engines is considered by many to be most successful of its kind, owing its success to a philosophy of constant development and improvement. Today, the Trent 7000 draws on the innovation and fuel efficiency of the previous Trent engines to make the best even better – a philosophy at the heart of Rolls-Royce’s business.

Millions of flying hours were built into the DNA of the Trent 7000 engine from day one of operation, delivering industry-leading levels of reliability for airlines to keep their passengers flying. 2024 has seen significant orders for the A330neo, making it one of the best-selling widebody aircraft of the year.

In this article, we caught up with Vincent Savarin, chief service engineer for the Trent 7000 at Rolls-Royce, to understand why maintaining that reliability, continual improvement and customer satisfaction wouldn’t be possible without the team behind the scenes.

Q: Tell us about the work you and your team do? “As chief service engineer for the Trent 7000 engine, my job is to prioritise what needs to be done to keep our engines on wing and performing well for our customers. Whether monitoring in-flight events, or feedback from the shopfloor and airlines, I’m constantly taking learnings that we can use to improve our engines and then leading our local and regional engineering teams in making that happen.

“We’re always working to find harmony between the needs of our customers, our business and the engine. For the team, that often means thinking like an airline to anticipate where improvements can be made. We’re privileged to have a diversely skilled team able to operate as experts across each area of the engine. Every day really is a school day and an opportunity to bring tangible benefits to our customers.”

Q: How has the Trent 7000 become the pioneer for reliability? “When I joined the Trent 7000 team in 2016, I was in charge of ensuring the product was in the best possible place ready for entry into service. As well as bringing all the latest generation benefits for its operators, the Trent 7000 delivers these with the lowest risk. It’s a derivative of the Trent XWB – an engine that raised the bar of what mature reliability out of the box means – and it’s truly followed in its footsteps.

“However, the complex nature of engines means there are always early maturity issues that need to be addressed, and the Trent 7000 was no different. But drawing on our previous successes meant we could accelerate the delivery of engine improvements very early into its service life with operators immediately feeling the benefits.

“The latest production standard of the Trent 7000 has achieved zero in-flight disruption issues and near 100% dispatch reliability for over 18 months and over 1.5 million engine flying hours. It also stands head and shoulders above any other engine when it comes to scheduled maintenance, requiring 60% fewer manhours of maintenance than the Trent 700, and there are further reductions to come.”

Q: What does this mean for our customers? “Reliability is the most important aspect of an engine for airlines. It’s the reliability of the engine that the operator feels on a day-to-day basis. They need it to operate flawlessly so they can take off on time and get their passengers to their destinations on schedule.

“If an engine is not reliable enough, this could mean costly delays and poor schedule adherence, ultimately harming the airlines reputation and their bottom line.

“Conversely, a reliable engine not only benefits operations but also gives airlines the option to increase the use of the aircraft, adding additional flights to the schedule and increasing the aircraft’s utilisation, which has a very positive impact on the cost of operation. The Trent 7000 is allowing just that.”

Q: What next for the Trent 7000? “The Trent 7000 has a bright future ahead of it. We can see it being a huge asset to the A330neo as the A330ceo fleet begins to retire. And by then it’ll be even better.

We’re continually working to improve reliability in a number of different ways. We use “our advanced engine health monitoring, and even richer data from our latest generation of engines, to anticipate potential disruption causes as well as prevent in-service disruption.

“We are working hard to develop new and innovative technologies to make physical engine inspections as quick as possible and with minimal disruption, meanwhile significantly reducing our impact on the environment in the movement of people and equipment needed to carry out physical interventions.

“For us, that philosophy of striving to make the best better will continue to be our focus, ensuring that we can not only maintain but improve the current exceptional levels of reliability to cement the Trent 7000’s reputation as the world’s most reliable widebody engine.”

www.rolls-royce.com