Proactive Investors - British aerospace large-cap Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (LON:RR.) has been dropped by Thai Airways as the exclusive supplier of widebody engines.
Bloomberg reported that the Bangkok-based airline placed an order for 45 General Electric-powered Boeing (NYSE:BA) aircraft instead.
Thai Airways and Rolls-Royce have priors; last November, the former’s chief executive Chai Eamsiri lambasted Rolls for not offering price concessions on an order of Trent engines.
“You should never play hard to your customer. If you play hard, you may win in the short term but lose for the long term,” Eamsiri said at the time.
In the same month, Rolls copped heat from Emirates boss Tim Clark over the durability of its engines.
His comments came after Emirates placed a $50 billion order for 90 GE-powered Boeing 777X jets, marking another unfortunate snub to Rolls.
Thai Airways’ pivot to Boeing craft comes despite a crisis point for the US engineering group.
Alaska Airlines grounded all its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9s in January after a door panel blew off one of its flights.
Reports of a front wheel falling off a Boeing plane at Atlanta airport shortly followed.
Rolls-Royce recently copped a downgrade from Berenberg, though Jefferies this week raised its guidance on the stock from 310p to 390p while maintaining a buy rating.
Shares have remained firm this Wednesday, rising nearly 2% to 312p at the time of writing.