FedEx CUSTOMER HIGHLIGHT: Corporation Responds amid General Electric Company Engine-related Issue

Following American Airlines incident, General Electric Company (GE) announced plans to remove its problematic part from all other commercial jet engines yesterday to prevent any other potentially hazardous event. In the same perspective, FedEx Corp recently announced that it is grounding one of its freighter equipped with the same part.

FedEx Corporation (FDX) spokesman reported to Reuters that one of its planes is temporarily grounded as its engine is still operating the part manufactured by General Electric which is currently conducting an intensive investigation related to a small number of engine parts. The engine manufacturer reported after initial investigation that the part has “material anomaly,” which led to American Airlines Group Inc.’s (AAL) accident earlier last month.

The US investigators announced earlier last week that the engine part had a fatigue cracking within the part with material anomaly; however, the agency has not blamed any company for the non-fatal accident. Industry experts are of the opinion that the material anomaly may lead to a manufacturing defect.

FedEx further reported that after checking the parts, one of its MD11 aircraft engine was affected by a similar issue. Furthermore, the company’s spokesman said that the aircraft is grounded until the replacement of its engine and that safety is top priority for the company.

Along with FedEx, General Electric also confirmed that all parts linked to the anomaly were retired except one which is still operational in a few jets, including the one operated by FedEx. The engine manufacturer also reported that the part was retired not because it was defective, but because the part belonged to the same chain of materials that had the anomaly.

General Electric has been positive regarding the performance of the CF6 engines used in commercial aircrafts, while reporting that the engine had more than 400 million hours of successful airtime since its inception in fiscal year 1970. American Airlines’ recent incident was also rare in which the component spew out from the engine resulting in a fuel leak and eventually fire at the incident.