Pratt & Whitney to power Air Costa E-Jets

Pratt & Whitney will provide exclusive power for 50 firm Embraer EJets E2 aircraft, with an additional 50 purchase rights, for an order announced by Embraer and Air Costa at the recently concluded Singapore Airshow. Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2018. The PurePower Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine family has more than 5,000 orders and commitments, including options. Pratt & Whitney is a division of United Technologies Corp.

“Our goal is to improve connectivity within India, more specifically, the secondary and tertiary cities,” said Lingamaneni Ramesh, Chairman, Air Costa. “We believe that Embraer’s E2 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney’s PurePower engines will help us reach that goal.”

“Pratt & Whitney is a key partner of the E-Jets E2 programme, supporting Embraer to deliver to the market the best aircraft in its category,” said Paulo Cesar Silva, President & CEO, Embraer Commercial Aviation. “Our technological development plan focuses on investigating and developing solutions for upcoming industry challenges, and the GTF engine is helping us get to where we need to be with our E2 aircraft.”

From light weight fan blades, cutting-edge materials and coatings, to advanced airfoil cooling, the suite of technologies in the GTF engine delivers the high efficiency with lower temperatures that drive improved durability with a lower overall cost of ownership.

“We are very proud that Air Costa has chosen to expand its fleet with Pure- Power engines on E-Jets E2 aircraft,” said Dave Brantner, President, Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engines. “Already more than 50 customers from around the globe are showing their confidence in our PurePower engine technology, which has completed more than 7,600 hours of ground and flight testing.”

Air Costa is an Indian regional airline based in Vijayawada, in the heart of the newly carved Seemandhra state. It is part of the LEPL Group and commenced scheduled operations in October 2013 using two Embraer E170 aircraft. Air Costa currently operates services with two-class E170 and E190 equipment on regional services through southern India.

Long partnership

Pratt & Whitney has been partnering with Indian aviation for more than six decades. It has over 300 aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney engines in India and over 16,000 large commercial engines around the globe. In India it started with the venerable Wasp engine in the 1940s. Pratt & Whitney ushered in the commercial jet age with the Boeing 707 powered by the JT3D.

The PurePower PW1000G engine, its latest offering, promises significant savings in fuel burn, noise, emission, and maintenance costs.