LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Rolls-Royce is working quickly to repair problems with some of its Trent 1000 engines that have left planes grounded, it said on Thursday, adding it remained confident the cost would not cause it to miss financial forecasts. Rolls-Royce was questioned at its annual shareholder meeting about problems with the Trent 1000 package C, the engine used to power some Boeing Dreamliner 787 planes, in what is a new headache for a company in turnaround mode since 2015.

It has said the problems will be fully resolved by 2022.

But Chief Executive Warren East, tasked with improving profitability at one of the biggest names in British manufacturing, said on Thursday he expected the issue of grounded aircraft to be sorted out much sooner than that. “Based on where we are at the moment, we would expect to remove the aircraft on the ground situation much, much faster than 2022,” East told shareholders.

Reuters

Photo Rob Vogelaar