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The head of Rolls-Royce has called on the British government to back plans for an engine to power the next generation of narrow-body aircraft, used primarily for short-haul flights.
Tufan Erginbilgiç, chief executive of the FTSE 100 aero-engine group, said he would like the government’s upcoming industrial strategy to “support competitively advantaged industries”.
Erginbilgiç said that while he was not calling on the government to pick individual industrial champions, Rolls-Royce nevertheless was “distinctive” in two areas: gas turbine engines that power aircraft and nuclear, notably small modular reactors.
“I am not suggesting they should pick who loses, who wins — but if something is this clear, you support that, you give it a push,” he told reporters on Tuesday at the Paris Air Show.
Backing key industries and large infrastructure projects would help sustain a country’s competitiveness in certain areas, he added, and could also help the UK, which has struggled to improve its productivity.
A consortium led by Rolls-Royce was chosen this month as the only preferred bidder to receive state backing to develop a fleet of small reactors in the UK.
Rolls-Royce believes its project to develop a new engine could create about 40,000 skilled jobs — at the company and in the wider supply chain — and generate as much as £120bn for the UK economy over the lifetime of the programme.
The Financial Times reported in April that the company was in talks with UK officials to help fund the £3bn development of a new engine.
Rolls-Royce currently builds engines that exclusively power larger, wide-body aircraft such as Airbus A350 jets and Boeing’s 787. Rolls-Royce left the narrow-body market more than a decade ago when it pulled out of a joint venture with Pratt & Whitney of the US.
The company said last year it had started work on a “scaled-down” demonstrator of its new UltraFan engine that would be specifically designed to power a next-generation narrow-body aircraft.
Erginbilgiç on Tuesday said the company was in talks with potential partners to develop the new engine.
It’s “even more true right now” that Rolls-Royce wanted to return to the narrow-body sector, he said. “If partnership happens, I think I will look to get the best of both worlds.”
The demonstrator would be ready in two years’ time, said Erginbilgiç.
