Rolls-Royce Canada is a maintenance, repair, and overhaul division of Rolls-Royce plc focussed on business aviation jet engines. Based in Montreal for almost 77 years, it has over 2000 aircraft operator customers across the world operating in both civil and defence operations.
You’ve been with Rolls-Royce Canada for almost 25 years so must have observed a lot of changes. Looking back, what stands out as the most transformative times for the industry?
Unlike many others at Rolls-Royce, I'm not an engineer but I am just captivated by planes and every day is fascinating. At this site, we celebrated our 75th year in 2022 and have seen three generations come through, with many strong family links. People are deeply embedded in this company. I love our division; we get to meet interesting people here in Montreal and the challenges are endless, with new engines all the time.
9/11 was a significant event; I remember being upstairs on our finance floor when it happened. From a business perspective, it changed everything. COVID was another notable event when we saw new customers emerge in business aviation. People who would normally fly first class moved to charter planes, and many high-net-worth individuals and Fortune 500 companies started owning their own planes. This shift was driven by people who preferred to travel with their families or colleagues in a self-contained controlled environment.
How does demand for your MRO services within business aviation compare to pre-pandemic levels?
Demand has picked up significantly; today our Rolls-Royce business aviation products are utilized at about 110% of pre-pandemic levels. During the pandemic, there was a dip, but it wasn't as impactful for business aviation as it was for airline products. Here in Montreal, we're the Center of Excellence for repair and overhaul. We handle engines after they come off-wing from our customers, fixing them as quickly as possible and returning them to our customers.
We deal with two engine lines that cover four engine types, processing over 200 engines a year, equal to two engines out every three days. Regarding the broader Rolls-Royce products, we've won significant campaigns with our Pearl family of engines, including Bombardier's G5500 and G6500, Gulfstream's G700 and G800, and the Dassault 10X. We are dominant in the large cabin ultra-long range segment, and our market share is expected to increase significantly due to these recent wins.
How do you plan to grow your resources in line with the increasing demand for services you are experiencing?
Meeting the demand and getting the right people is our biggest challenge. In repair and overhaul, we deal with complex engines like the BR710, which has 390 different repair permutations. The complexity of the tasks and the need for specialized trades make it challenging. We're focused on attracting and retaining talent and have partnered with Women in Governance and increased our female representation from 5% to 13% in just a few years. We also want to engage kids at a younger age to consider careers in aerospace.
Last year, we increased our headcount by approximately one hundred people and we plan to hire at least that many again this year since the demand over the next 5 years is significant and we have natural attrition with the existing workforce. Montreal is a hub with great universities and trade schools, but there's a spike in demand across all businesses so we're all competing for the same resources. We're embedded with schools through AeroMontreal, however, even with increased registrations, it's still insufficient to meet our demands. To address this, we've launched an apprenticeship program, creating our own academy to train people internally.
What steps is Rolls-Royce taking to ensure that it is meaningfully decarbonising aviation?
We're committed to using SAF (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) in all our test beds - last year, we certified all our in-production civil aero engines on 100% SAF, however, there's still formal certification to go. SAF is currently certified at 50%, but we know our products can run on 100%. For long-range travel, the only way to achieve meaningful decarbonisation is through more efficient engines and SAF.
We’ve developed a distinctive new engine demonstrator called UltraFan, which delivers 10% efficiency improvements on the most efficient engine available today. We’re also planning a smaller Ultrafan demonstrator designed to show that the technology can be scaled for narrowbody engines next year. We've done significant work on hydrogen as well. In 2022, we tested our AE2100 engine on hydrogen and plan to test a business jet engine, the Pearl 15, on hydrogen with NASA in Mississippi.
As an MRO ‘Centre of Excellence’, how are you leveraging technological innovation to improve and modernize your services alongside developments in the industry?
We're heavily investing in AI. Traditionally, MRO has been very manual, but there are now technological developments in equipment. For example, our $10 million automated wash line for cleaning engine components will be operational in early 2025. This will improve efficiency as robots will handle tasks like dipping components in chemicals but will also eliminate a significant health and safety risk for our employees.
While it may seem like robots are replacing jobs, we still need people to operate them but now they can do so in a much more environmentally acceptable way.
Here in Montreal, we have the facility to place the engines under all sorts of environmental conditions during testing - such as cold start, lighting strikes and water ingestion testing. The engines’ responses are closely observed from a nearby control room. Also, new engine health monitoring tells us what work an engine will need before it arrives and helps us prepare better. We've also developed state-of-the-art probes for detecting defects on blades that humans can't. Predictability and AI help us prepare for engines coming in, and improve turnaround times for engines, benefiting customers who rely on quick service. This includes our CorporateCare programs, which provide 24-hour turnaround for any AOG and aim to deliver 100% Aircraft Availability.
