787 Engine Issues
 

Has anybody heard what Avianca is doing for transatlantic flights while they sort out the engine issue on the 787s? I need to purchase a couple of these flights this week for June and July, but I’m having second thoughts about flying Avianca. I really don’t want to get stuck on a Wamps plane.

I have read something on FT, Lifemiles forum. Actually only 5 posts below yours: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/avia...r-etops60.html

BOG-MAD or MDE-MAD or CLO-MAD? Evelop Airlines (AV14, AV15, AV16 y AV17):

Cali-Madrid y Madrid-Cali.
Medellín-Madrid y Madrid-Medellín.

So they are not operating the BOG-MAD flights now? I guess I need to find another option...

They are operation flight BOG-MAD with own planes. Only from MDE and CLO they ware using planes from Evelop, which do not have the same standard like Avianca.

I think Avianca has the engine option that is not affected. Air New Zealand has had major strife with their Rolls Royce engines.

Avianca had some issue, but in march

I read that ETOPS on the RR powered 787 has been reduced to 60 minutes. I was surprised when I flew from SCL to MEL 10 days ago that it was a RR powered 787. I spoke to the pilot as to how come they were operating a route which required ETOPS 280 with the RR engines. He said that it was ok as the operation hours on these engines were lower that any of the engines which had to be shutdown by ANA or ANZ. LATAM were pulling the aircraft out of service when the operating hours got closer to the historical shut-down hours. This made me very nervous. My view is that defective engine design is defective, unreliable is unreliable, to operate these engines at ETOPS 330 in my view is against ETOPS principles even if it is within the regulations. There are so many factors that you cannot predict exactly as to after how many hours the defect will cause a failure. Just like in QF32 where RR gambled that their known oil pump defect would not fail early and lost the bet. Because the QF A380's were being used differently to the SQ and other A380's and therefore the engine failed earlier. They cannot be 100% sure that there will not be some previously unknown factor that will be different on the LATAM 787's which will mean they will fail earlier than the ANA and ANZ. I do not want to be 280 minutes from the nearest airport when one engine has to be shutdown and the other has the same design defect. Lucky it was a daytime flight and I told my wife that we needed to make sure one of us was always awake and if anything unusual seemed to be happening to wake me immediately if I was asleep.
As a result of that flight I will trust any airline with RR powered 787-8 & 787-9 to not use them on ETOPS operations. So until this is all sorted which will probably be after 2020 I am going to avoid making any bookings with airlines flying those aircraft as I do not trust this low engine hours philosophy for continuing ETOPS with the 787-8 & 9. Trying to predict months in advance if they will be using a -8 or -9 with Trent 1000-10 is impossible so just avoid the airlines with the RR 787 except possibly ANA who have announced they are putting the Trent 1000-10 on all their aircraft. You nearly always have a choice of airline why take the risk.

I guess the RR engines are currently the ones which is monitored most closely, in particular the sub-variant in question. Arguably they might be safer than other engines not under such scrutiny.

I am sorry and not trying to be rude but what was the plan? Open the emergency exit door and jump? Or do it like Tom Cruise in Mission : Impossible Rogue Nation?

If there is one engine failure on that route then there is a high possibility the second of these defective engines having to operate at very high power setting would also fail before you could reach a diversion airport which would mean a ditching in the remote far southern ocean probably five days from a rescue if it was a survivable water landing.
So the plan would be.
1. Grab my bag from the overhead locker and remove the things which would increase my chances of being one of the rescue survivors.
2. First item to make sure I had a bottle of water. You can get pretty thirsty in the half a day it would take for emergency supplies to be dropped to the southern ocean.
2. Second item would be to put on my jacket as it would be cold if I managed to get in a raft for 5 days.
3. Get my EPIRB take it out of its case and have it in my pocket ready to deploy.
4. Also make sure I have my GPS, mobile phone and the 3 day back-up battery with cables also in my pocket and put the mobile phone in a waterproof bag.
5. Count the rows to forward and aft exits and memorise.
6. Look for potential exit problems in rows between me and the exit rows, bags hand bags, animals etc and and develop a plan as to what to do if it becomes a problem.
7. Be ready and prepared to go to brace position if it looks like we are going down even if the brace instruction is not called.

My guess is that if one of those RR engines failed more than 180 minutes from the nearest airport you are in deep .... and your chances of arriving home in one piece is less than 20% so you better do everything possible to make sure you will be one of the few survivors.