United Services - News & Media

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United Services continues to build on decades of experience and fast, comprehensive, worldwide capabilities with the expansion this spring of an engine-line maintenance agreement with Pratt & Whitney.

The General Terms Agreement (GTA) signed in late 2005 began cooperative engine services between United Services and Pratt & Whitney, which had launched engine line maintenance services in 2006 to support its customers worldwide. The GTA opened a door to more business for United Services; it gave Pratt & Whitney an experienced line maintenance partner.

This spring's updated GTA fills in the details of the arrangement. Both parties have developed terms that define which services are offered, where, and by whom.

"It's a GTA whereby United Services provides Pratt & Whitney with a host of line maintenance services that are outside of its core maintenance offerings ," says Gil Shaw, manager of MRO Development, United Services. "Pratt & Whitney is then able to offer more services to its customers. It's an exciting addition to our list of line-maintenance solutions."

The GTA now offers to P&W customers United Services' expertise in the following areas: boroscope, engine preservation, post-lease inspections, and additional ad hoc services such as non-destructive testing. These services can be performed at United's hubs or, through the Global Emergency Management (GEM) teams, at a time and place to fulfill the Pratt & Whitney customer needs. United Services' GEM teams perform both routine and non-routine services.

"Through GEM, Pratt & Whitney can offer innovative solutions to a customer's problems, increasing P&W's access to the worldwide customer base," Shaw says. "GEM's motto is 'No problem.'"

Anupam Bhargava is Pratt & Whitney's general manager of line maintenance services. He says working jointly with United Services lets Pratt & Whitney more quickly reach its customers.

"United Services has world-class line maintenance capabilities with engines, and we felt they were an ideal partner to join with our existing capabilities," Bhargava says. "The first (GTA) agreement was good, it set the framework, but this agreement really provides a lot more of the details: for example, turn times and which locations we can rely on where United Services can provide support."

"It allows us to really respond quickly. At the end of the day, our business is about rapid response."

P&W wants its customers to have 24-hour access worldwide to the same high quality of service, including meeting various OEM and regulatory body standards, whether Pratt & Whitney or United Services is the provider on-site. Both parties hope the GTA will continue to evolve so P&W, with United Services as its prime vendor, can assure customers their engine-line maintenance needs will be met quickly and efficiently.

Overall, the new GTA should help P&W land "any customer on any engine," Bhargava says.

Shaw says the updated agreement "is good for United Services because it gives us access to customers we may not have."