It’s never good when something bad happens and a manufacturer dribbles information out.  Rolls Royce has a PR problem that is about to get much worse before it gets better.  The latest news is that Rolls has acknowledged the potential for oil fires in their early Trent 900 engines now and it appears there have been a couple of quiet upgrades in the time the engine has been in service.

One wonders why it has taken more than a week for this information to come out and one also wonders what else hasn’t been discussed.  It’s understandable for a company to want public discussion to be about fact rather than speculation but you don’t manage speculation by withholding all the facts.  We see manufacturers do this time and again in all industries.

It never works out and it always has the flavor of deceit whether or not deceit really was a part of the intent.   Full disclosure reassures people and, most importantly, it’s the only right thing to do.

If there are potentially related problems on the Trent 1000 engine for the 787, Rolls Royce would be well advised to start that dicussion now rather than let it lay fallow for months only to have it erupt again.   The public understands a mistake, it doesn’t understand things being covered up.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax