Rolls-Royce Foresees Rise in Parts Business

Rolls-Royce, the world’s second-largest civil jet engine maker, said Sunday that it expects to increase sales in its lucrative maintenance and spare parts business to 50% of total sales.

“We have 40% of our sales in the aftermarket, and I guess we can get to 50%,” Chairman Ralph Robins, who will retire later this year, said. In the battle for new engine orders in the troubled commercial airline industry, Robins said Rolls-Royce was confident of maintaining more than 50% market share of its latest Trent series engine for the Airbus A380, a 555-seat super-jumbo competing with Boeing Co.’s 747 series. Rolls-Royce slashed 5,000 jobs in October and warned investors it faced a difficult 2002 and 2003 as aircraft makers scaled back output in response to the financial crisis in the airline industry caused by a slump in demand for air travel.