Rolls-Royce and South African Airways Technical on Wednesday celebrated the opening of Rolls-Royce’s first lease engine storage facility in Africa, further developing its global service support network to deliver improved aircraft availability.

The event was supported and attended by the United Kingdom’s Trade Commissioner for Africa, Emma Wade-Smith OBE and Ms Thandi Phele, the Acting Deputy Director General at the South African Department of Trade and Industry responsible for industrial development.

The facility, based in the SAAT site at Johannesburg International Airport, is capable of storing a full range of Rolls-Royce engines to meet the requirements of airline and business jet customers based or operating in Africa.

The lease engine storage facility can house every type of Trent engine, including the Trent 7000 which will soon power the Airbus A330neo into service.

Rolls-Royce is providing technical training to South African Airways Technical staff to enable them to conduct work on engines in storage. The shared vision is that SAAT mechanics will in time be able to perform a range of inspection and on-wing services to Rolls-Royce customers in Africa.

The facility is authorised to store engines covering all the needs of Rolls-Royce’s African customers including AE3007; Tay; BR710; BR715; RB211-524; RB211-535; Trent 500; Trent 700; Trent 800; Trent 900; Trent 1000; Trent XWB and Trent 7000.