All Nippon Airways (ANA) has six of itsBoeing 787s out of action as it continues inspections due to concerns about turbine blade erosion in the fleet’s Rolls-Royce engines.
The airline intends to progressively inspect its 787 engines and replace
 
turbine blades, the carrier tells Aviation Daily. The six aircraft currently grounded are part of this process, which has caused the carrier to cancel several domestic flights in recent days (Aviation Daily, Aug. 25).
So far ANA has replaced turbine blades on 17 engines, out of the total of 100 engines on its 50 787-8s and -9s. The carrier says it has “identified that multiple engines need to be serviced.” ANA uses the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000engines in its 787 fleet.
 
“ANA is continuously receiving information from Rolls-Royce, [which] is further investigating these issues,” says ANA. Rolls-Royce is also “developing a new type of turbine blade, which will be completed by the end of 2016,” the airline says.
A Rolls-Royce spokesman says the company is “aware of the situation and [is] working closely with ANA to minimize the effect on aircraft service disruption.” He adds that “this is an accelerated ongoing service management program that relates only to a limited proportion of the ANA fleet involved in domestic operations.”
The issue came to light after ANA experienced inflight engine problems three times since February. The first flight was from Kuala Lumpur to Narita in February, the second from Hanoi to Tokyo in March and the third on a Japanese domestic route earlier this month.
The airline identified the cause as erosion and cracking of turbine blades. Industry sources believe the issue is with the coating of the intermediate pressure turbine blades.
ANA canceled nine domestic flights on Aug. 29, as well as a total of nine flights through the end of August. The airline previously predicted it may have to cancel about 10 flights per day through at least the end of September.