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An A320neo in Munich: Hundreds of these aircraft at various airlines need to be maintained

Photo: Sven Hoppe / dpa

Part of Lufthansa's Airbus medium-haul fleet has to go to the workshop due to known engine problems - the airline is therefore thinning out its flight schedule in the spring.

As of March 1st, the Romanian destinations of Cluj-Napoca and Timisoara will no longer be served from Frankfurt, as the company announced in response to a dpa request.

With the change to the summer flight schedule, the domestic German connections Munich-Leipzig and Frankfurt-Friedrichshafen as well as the Austrian destinations Innsbruck and Linz from Frankfurt will also be canceled for the time being from March 31st.

In total there are 100 connections per week.

However, the Munich – Leipzig route will be offered again from the end of October.

According to an earlier statement by CEO Carsten Spohr, 64 aircraft in the Lufthansa Group are affected by the problem with engines from the manufacturer Pratt & Whitney.

They should be checked preferentially by the in-house Lufthansa Technik.

Hundreds of aircraft at several airlines affected

Pratt & Whitney recalled the turbines worldwide for maintenance last fall because the company used defective metal powder in the production of the turbine disks and other parts.

600 to 700 engines of medium-haul aircraft in the A320neo model family at various airlines are affected.

They will have to undergo additional maintenance between 2024 and 2026, as Pratt & Whitney parent RTX and the Munich engine manufacturer MTU announced.

Both companies are preparing for billions of dollars in charges.

MTU has an 18 percent stake in the engine model.

The company also operates one of three final assembly lines for the engine type, which is used in around every second Airbus medium-haul jet from the A320neo model family.

The remaining Airbus aircraft in this series are powered by engines from the French-American manufacturer CFM, a joint venture between Safran and General Electric.

The A320neo jets and their longer variant A321neo are Airbus' best sellers.

kko/dpa