Pratt & Whitney Announces Four-Year Exclusive Repair Agreement with TAM

LE BOURGET, FRANCE -- Brazil's TAM Linhas Aereas (TAM) signed a four-year exclusive repair agreement with Pratt & Whitney for Airbus A330-200 thrust reversers. Pratt & Whitney is a United Technologies Corp. company.

"We work hard to keep the operating costs for our fleet of A330-200 aircraft controlled with maintenance agreements such as this one," says Captain David Barioni Neto, president and CEO, TAM Linhas Aereas, S.A. "Having equipment operating at optimum levels helps to keep assets in service and avoid costly break downs."

TAM currently operates 11 A330-200s with Pratt & Whitney PW4168A model engines. Those engines are covered by an exclusive service agreement provided by Pratt & Whitney Global Service Partners.

"TAM has been a very successful airline in Latin America and a market leader in Brazil and we are pleased that TAM will benefit from our composite repair capabilities on thrust reversers," says Tom Hutton, vice president, Pratt & Whitney Global Repair Services. "Arrangements such as this help to control costs for customers by allowing us to perform more precise planning and to identify operational efficiencies. Building on the success of the concept, plans are in place to expand the arrangement to cover additional nacelle components."