Scheduled to become the first engine to enter service with the A320neo in this year’s fourth quarter, the PW1100G holds at least one advantage over its competition from CFM purely by virtue of its earlier certification and EIS. Still, the CFM Leap-1A carries a modest market share advantage among the some 60 percent of the neo customers who have already chosen an engine. Speaking at his company’s annual Media Day event in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 2, Pratt & Whitney president Paul Adams wouldn’t betray any concern about the early sales imbalance, however. In fact, market share doesn’t concern him at this point, he said.

“I’m actually not wound up on share percentage,” said Adams. “We’ve got a great backlog and we want to be sure that we deliver that backlog and, frankly, we want to win profitable deals.”

Adams added that the fact that the PurePower family has already flown for 3,500 hours gives Pratt a solid advantage. “We have data, we’re flying,” he stressed. “It’s going to be easier for us to go into customers and say, ‘Here’s what the product is capable of doing. What’s the other guy doing?’”

Issuing a sort of state-of-the-company briefing in Hartford, Adams described 2015 as an extremely busy year in terms of flight-test activity after a 2014 campaign that he called “good but not great” in terms of company finances. He did also call 2014 a “transformational year” from a product perspective, as Pratt certified nine engines—seven derivatives and two “major” products—including the PW1100G for the A320neo. “As a result of this the largest part of our development spent on our geared turbofan program has been completed and we’re transitioning now into flight test and into entry into service,” he noted.

Over the next three years Pratt expects to deploy the geared turbofan at 39 different airlines, 45 percent of which don’t currently appear on the company’s list of operators. The company plans what Adams called a seven-step process to ensure smooth entry into service, starting 18 months before EIS. “We think that’s going to be an important element of making sure that as the airlines transition to the GTF, that it’s smooth and works very effectively for them,” concluded Adams.