News summary produced by Claude AI
Rolls-Royce has successfully addressed reliability issues with its Trent engines that had caused frequent maintenance visits and disputes with airline customers in recent years. The company’s chief executive reported underlying profits for 2025 increased 40% to £3.5bn, and the company’s share price has risen significantly from levels three years earlier.
The durability problems centered on cracking in turbine blades within the Trent engines, which power large widebody aircraft from manufacturers including Airbus and Boeing. The company allocated £1bn toward improving durability and expanding maintenance, repair and overhaul capacity. Solutions included modifications to cooling hole patterns in the blades to increase cooling by 40% and weight reductions to lower forces on components. These changes are expected to triple the time engines can remain on aircraft before requiring overhaul, with approximately half of affected engines already receiving the new blades.
Rolls-Royce executives attributed delays in implementing these fixes partly to certification slowdowns stemming from Boeing’s 737 Max crisis, which prompted increased scrutiny of Federal Aviation Administration processes. The company’s senior vice-president for customers acknowledged the reliability problems had caused pain to airline operators while also requiring substantial investment from Rolls-Royce itself.
Looking forward, the manufacturer is pursuing development of its UltraFan engine technology, including versions designed for both widebody and narrowbody aircraft. The narrowbody version remains in concept stage with testing targeted for 2028, while the widebody variant has achieved recent technical milestones. Company officials have indicated they prefer partnership arrangements to share the substantial investment required for returning to the narrowbody market, which has experienced most industry growth in recent years following the company’s exit from that segment in 2011.