The Boeing 787 Dreamliner stands out as one of the comparatively few aircraft types in production to have multiple engine options. The two engine operations are the GE Aerospace GEnx and the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000. In the first few years, GEnx engines accounted for around two-thirds of the engine orders for the aircraft. However, since issues were found on the Trent 1000, it has dominated the orders now, making up around 92% of known orders.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner has proven to be an immensely successful widebody aircraft and has replaced the Boeing 767 in the passenger role. It is credited with contributing to the premature demise of the Airbus A380 Superjumbo as it made more flexible point-to-point travel more feasible and offered significant fuel savings. Here is what to know about why airlines now favor the GEnx over the Trent 1000.

Potential performance differences

Firstly, it should be noted that the engines' respective performance is somewhat different from each other. For example, GE Aerospace has boasted that the GEnx offers 1.4% better specific fuel consumption (SFC) versus “the competition for a 3,000 nautical mile mission.” Furthermore, the engine offers three times higher time on the wing, a 99.98% dispatch rate, and a 3% higher annual utilization. The time-on-wing and annual utilization advantage did not allude to comparison versus its competition.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce has highlighted that the Trent 1000 is 20% more fuel efficient than the 767, which was replaced by the 787, and has 99.9% dispatch reliability since it entered service. The true performance of engines and their economies are dependent on a complex range of factors, and it's difficult to draw conclusions based on the manufacturer's product page.

While marketing materials presented by all three original equipment manufacturers (OEM), including Boeing, do not necessarily unveil the answer to why airlines have been switching toward the GEnx, there are certain advantages that the GE Aerospace engine has over the Trent 1000, including the SFC.

The Trent 1000's Reliability Issues

Whatever the fuel difference was, it wasn't enough to make one engine decisively more popular than the other initially. While the Trent 1000 was the first to enter service, both engines have had reliability issues here and there, including the GEnx’s icing problems. Things got more serious when Rolls-Royce engines began developing severe issues in 2016.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) was the first airline to discover turbine blade corrosion and cracking, with Air New Zealand and Virgin Atlantic later notifying that they had to ground some of its 787s due to the problems in 2017. Rolls-Royce’s 2017 annual report detailed that the company had discovered that “a small number of parts” had lower than expected durability, including compressor rotor blades and intermediate and high-pressure turbine (HPT) blades.

In April 2018, Rolls-Royce disclosed that the intermediate pressure compressor (IPC) on Trent 1000 Package C engines had been experiencing durability issues. By May 2018, this had extended to a small number of Package B engines. The Trent 1000 Thrust, Efficiency, and New Technology (TEN), which entered service in November 2017, also suffered problems, which Rolls-Royce disclosed in April 2019.

Orders Swing To GEnx

On December 31, 2016, Boeing had secured 1,497 gross orders for all 787 variants, with 886 of those being powered by the GEnx, while 454 aircraft would be powered by the Trent 1000. The remaining 157 aircraft had unspecified engines, which included 787s that 👁 Image
Boeing never delivered, such as Aeroflot’s purchase of 22 787s. From 2017 until October 31, 2024, Boeing secured 891 orders for the 787, with aircraft engine choices being split between 640 GEnx, 96 Trent 1000, and 155 unspecified.

As of the time of writing, Boeing has a total of 948 Boeing 787s on order. Of these, just 48 examples are listed as having Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. More than ten times that number, some 534 Dreamliners, are on order with the GEnx engine option, while the remaining 366 aircrafts' engines are unspecified. Clearly, post-2017 has not been favorable for Rolls-Royce and the Trent 1000, with the discrepancy between the two engine OEMs’ backlogs growing ever larger in the past seven years.

To date, Boeing records that it has delivered a total of 1,189 Dreamliner aircraft. Of these, 405 are powered by Rolls-Royce engines and 784 are powered by the GEnx. This means that around 34% of the Dreamliners flying today have RR engines. These will be flying for many years to come, although they are set to see their share reduce as more GEnx-powered 787s are delivered.

Airlines Switching To GEnx

The most notable airline still with RR-powered Dreamliners on order is Lufthansa, which has 27 of the 48 unfilled (and delayed) orders. British Airways had been an airline ordering Rolls-Royce engines. However, during the Farnborough International Airshow in 2024, GE Aerospace announced that the parent company of British Airways, International Airlines Group ( IAG), had selected the GEnx to power six of the British airline’s 787s. Some airlines like LATAM Airlines have switched orders for the GEnx.

Other airlines with fleets of Trent 1000-equipped Dreamliners are also switching to GEnx with new orders. For example, Air New Zealand has a fleet of 14 Dreamliners in service, all of which have RR engines. However, the five new 787s it has on order are for 787s with GEnx. All Nippon Airways is one of the world's leading 787 operators with 88 examples in service, of which just six have GEnx engines. Of the eight remaining on order, five are for GEnx and three are for RR.

Note that the chart above mostly draws from aircraft listed in Boeing's order book by the airline. Ethiopian Airlines has also received more Boeing 787s through lessors not listed here. For the time being, Trent 1000-powered 787 operators’ fleets are much larger than their GEnx-powered 787 counterparts, with Ethiopian Airlines being the only carrier that has more GEnx-powered 787s than those equipped with engines from Rolls-Royce. Its clear that as these orders are delivered, the share of Dreamliners equipped with GEnx engines is set to only increase.

End Of Engine Options

All this is not to say that Rolls-Royce makes inferior engines. It should also be noted that Pratt & Whitney has also recently experienced extensive issues with its Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines that power the Airbus A320neo family. Those issues have particularly affected airlines like IndiGo. Currently, GE Aerospace and Rolls-Royce are the only two engine manufacturers building engines for widebody commercial aircraft after Pratt & Whitney stepped back to focus on narrowbody engines.

GE Aerospace has around 54% of the orders for future widebody engine orders, with RR having the remaining 46%. It has become the exception for aircraft to have a choice of engines. The upcoming Boeing 777X is to be exclusively powered by the GE Aerospace GE9X. Meanwhile, the Airbus A330neo is exclusively powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 7000, and the Airbus A350 is exclusively powered by the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB turbofan.

With narrowbodies, the A320neo/A321neo is powered by the CFM International LEAP or Pratt & Whitney PW1000G, while the Boeing 737 MAX is exclusively powered by the CFM International LEAP. The Airbus A220 exclusively has the Pratt & Whitney PW1500G, and the Embraer E-Jet exclusively has variants of the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G. This means that of the main commercial aircraft currently in production, only the Boeing 787 and A320neo currently have a choice of engine options.

Rolls-Royce Not For Boeing

While airlines may have chosen the GEnx over the RR Trent 1000 for reliability issues, it has had the effect of limiting Rolls-Royce engines with Boeing. Apart from the now-limited number of RR-engined Boeing 787 Dreamliners on order, all of Boeing's widebody orders are for GE Aerospace engines. The one exception is the remaining orders for the Boeing 767. While the remaining freighter orders are for GE CF6 engines, the military KC-46A Pegasus orders are for PW4000 engines. It is possible that Pratt & Whitney will returned to the widebody engine market in the future, but for now its more interested in narrowbody engines.

Meanwhile, all Airbus widebodies are now only powered by Rolls-Royce engines. It is unclear if Rolls-Royce will ever be able to reclaim its lost market share with the Dreamliner. The Dreamliner is continuing to attract significant orders, but these appear to be for GEnx engines. For example, in May 2025, Qatar Airways placed a massive order for Dreamliners, and these are to be powered with GEnx engines.

As a final point, in June 2025, the Dreamliner suffered its first catastrophic loss when Air India Flight 171 crashed on takeoff. The cause of the crash is still being investigated, and the reason is still unclear, although it appears that it suffered dual engine failure. That aircraft, registered VT-ANB, was powered by GEnx engines. More investigation is needed to draw any conclusions or whether the incident will affect future GEnx sales. Few things in life are perfectly linear. Its possible the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine could get make a comeback, but only time will tell.