DUBAI: Rolls-Royce restructured contracts with some of its Middle East customers as the pandemic upended global travel, a top executive revealed.
Patrick Regis, regional president of the engineering company that makes engines for aircraft and ships told Bloomberg TV that he expected to see an increased focus on narrow-body aircraft in the Middle East.
“One of the challenges in the Middle East is that the bulk of our business was supporting our airline customers. We’ve had to restructure a lot the contracts we’ve had and we’ve been quite successful with this. It’s been a painful process. I’m hopeful we are going to see more, probably in the narrow-body market than in the wide-body market. I think there is still quite a bit of time to reconfigure,” he said.
Rolls-Royce recently revealed plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 through the use of more sustainable fuels. It comes as multinationals face increased pressure from shareholders and environmental activists.
Regis said he expected that this year’s Dubai Airshow would provide a forum for discussions around some of these themes.
“The biggest challenge I think is how we organize ourselves around synthetic aviation fuel — what do the prospects look like for hybrid electric flight in the next few years — those will be discussions that I think will be very important at the Dubai Airshow.”
Rolls-Royce expects to make all of its commercial engines compatible to run on 100 percent sustainable aviation fuels by 2023.
