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UPS hires Delta Air Lines to maintain Boeing 757 engines

TechOps among the airline’s major ancillary businesses

Eric Kulisch
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Delta TechOps technicians work in Atlanta on a Pratt & Whitney GTF engine. (Photo: Delta/P&W)

Key Takeaways:

  • Delta TechOps signed a 10-year contract with UPS to provide engine maintenance for approximately half of UPS's Boeing 757-200 freighter fleet (those with Pratt & Whitney PW2037 engines).
  • This agreement represents a revenue diversification and growth strategy for Delta TechOps, Delta's maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) division.
  • Delta TechOps is a large North American MRO provider, also expanding its capacity for newer Pratt & Whitney geared turbofan engines.
  • Both Delta and UPS are headquartered in Atlanta.
Key takeaways sponsored by SONAR

Delta Air Lines’ technical operations division will provide engine maintenance support to UPS Airlines for its fleet of Boeing 757-200 freighters.

Delta TechOps announced on LinkedIn last week that it has signed a 10-year contract with UPS (NYSE: UPS) to service Pratt & Whitney PW2037 engines on its fleet of 757s. Delta CEO Ed Bastian also disclosed the agreement during Delta’s first quarter-earnings briefing.

“This is an exciting one for our MRO team and supports long-term revenue diversification and growth,” Bastian said. Both companies are headquartered in Atlanta.

UPS operates 75 Boeing 757 freighters, according to a fact sheet on its website. About half the fleet is powered by P&W and the other half by Rolls Royce engines.

Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) is one of the largest maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) providers in North America. Other major airlines with their own maintenance units include American and Lufthansa. The companies inspect and maintain their own aircraft, and make extra money from outside customers.

Last week, Pratt & Whitney announced an agreement to expand annual overhaul capacity by 30% for geared turbofan engines at Delta TechOps’ Atlanta facility over the next decade. The GTF engine is a newer type mostly used to power the Airbus A220 and A320 neo family of aircraft. The extra infrastructure will enable Delta to overhaul up to 450 of the engines per year.

Delta makes money from noncore businesses like TechOps and its jet fuel refinery near Philadelphia.

(Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the UPS 757 freighters are passenger-to-freighter conversions. They are production freighters. The story also suggested that Delta is maintaining engines for the entire fleet. It is only supporting about half the fleet with Pratt & Whitney engines.)

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

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Eric Kulisch

Eric is the Supply Chain and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves. An award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering the logistics sector, Eric spent nearly two years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Automotive News, where he focused on regulatory and policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, mobility, fuel economy and safety. He has won two regional Gold Medals and a Silver Medal from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for government and trade coverage, and news analysis. He was voted best for feature writing and commentary in the Trade/Newsletter category by the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He was runner up for News Journalist and Supply Chain Journalist of the Year in the Seahorse Freight Association's 2024 journalism award competition. In December 2022, Eric was voted runner up for Air Cargo Journalist. He won the group's Environmental Journalist of the Year award in 2014 and was the 2013 Supply Chain Journalist of the Year. As associate editor at American Shipper Magazine for more than a decade, he wrote about trade, freight transportation and supply chains. He has appeared on Marketplace, ABC News and National Public Radio to talk about logistics issues in the news. Eric is based in Vancouver, Washington. He can be reached for comments and tips at ekulisch@freightwaves.com