CHICAGO, Sept 17 (Reuters) – GE Aerospace Chief Financial Officer Rahul Ghai said on Thursday he was confident a durability issue with the GE9X engine’s mid-seal would not hold up the planned entry into service next year of the Boeing 777X aircraft.
The US company disclosed in February that it was examining a potential durability problem involving a seal in the GE9X. In April, GE said it had identified the root cause, was finalizing a fix and saw no change to the GE9X program’s schedule.
Speaking at a Morgan Stanley conference, Ghai said testing had shown the mid-seal, a part connecting the front and rear sections of the engine, was not as durable as GE had expected.
GE redesigned the part and began shipping GE9X engines fitted with the new seal to Boeing in the third quarter, he said. The company expects FAA certification of the redesigned part in the next few months.
Ghai said GE had “a huge degree of confidence” in the redesigned seal after testing it internally and had incorporated the design into engines now being produced.
He said the existing seal can be used for the certification work under way, including the approvals needed before Boeing begins ETOPS testing. The redesigned seal for production aircraft is going through a separate FAA certification process.
(Reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith)
