Safran’s NacelleLife recently celebrated its first anniversary. Shafic Hanna-Daher shares what has been learned so far and what’s next for the service.

Safran’s NacelleLife services launched in April 2018 to support customers along the entire life of their nacelle, from the purchase of a new aircraft and through each maintenance task performed until the aircraft’s resale or operational retirement.

Shafic Hanna-Daher, Services Director, Safran Nacelles, said that since the launch, Safran Nacelles has signed over 10 contracts across three different programmes. These include support for the Airbus A320, A330 and A380.

“We’re not stopping here”

“But we’re not stopping here,” Hanna-Daher said, adding: “In terms of nacelle programmes, we are present across all type of programme, from the smallest fleet of regional business jets all the way to the A380. So the services solutions are also present all over.”

He noted that throughout its first year offering NacelleLife, the company learned a lot, witnessing an “extremely dynamic market” and different types of purchasing behaviours, especially with the A320neo.

Hanna-Daher said Safran Nacelles is looking to double the amount of revenue from service contracts over the next four years.

Adapt and innovate

“We need to adapt and be reactive and quick, and get closer to the customer with local solutions,” he said. “Innovation is also key.”

He added: “One of the things that we have learned and that we are also investing in is how to work closely with our engineering team in order to embed the design for services early on. Also, [looking at] what other solutions can we [offer] the customer – it could be digital solutions in order to allow them to reduce costs and transfer this value to their customer.”

JetLife, which is currently deployed with five airlines, is one example of this, Hanna-Daher said. JetLife is a mobile application that provides the latest service bulletins (SB) for an airline’s fleet. The user is informed in real-time of what modification or inspections are required on which nacelles in its fleet. JetLife sends notifications to the user to advise that a new service bulletin has been issued and systematically includes a new aircraft joining the airline’s fleet. As a result, a user can anticipate the implementation of changes on these nacelles and plan them during scheduled maintenance phases.

Earlier this week, Safran Nacelle’s NacelleLife programme was selected by Avianca Holdings S.A. to provide repair services and spares pool resources for engine nacelles on the airline’s growing fleet of Airbus A320neo family jetliners, which are powered by CFM International LEAP-1A turbofan engines.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter