East Hartford jet-engine designer Pratt & Whitney is in talks with China’s largest aircraft maker about a possible joint venture to assemble its state-of-the-art passenger jet engine on the mainland, Pratt officials confirm.
According to China’s Global Times, Pratt CEO David P. Hess says the joint venture would produce components for Pratt’s PurePower1000G engine. Pratt has invested $1 billion to build and test the PurePower, billed as the next generation of fuel-efficient and quiet jetliner motor.
Global Times quoted Hess as saying Pratt wants to reenter the Chinese market through the joint venture. In 2009, the firm failed in participation of the C919 project, China’s first home-grown large commercial airliner, the newspaper said on its Web site.
Hess personally made a sales call to China, the paper said, to recommend the PW1000G engine to the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, the major maker of C919.
In a statement Tuesday to HBJ Today, Pratt repeated its commitment to the Chinese aircraft market, where it has joint venture facilities in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Zhuzhou and Xi’an. Hess said the joint venture envisions serving the global jet-engine market as well.
“China is an important market to P&W, and our portfolio of services and presence are expanding in a number of ways,” Pratt said.
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