Rolls Royce has just announced two large orders for its aircraft jet engines. The orders worth $2 billion in total have come from Ethiopian Airlines and Air China. Rolls Royce has been asked to build its Trent 700 engines for twenty Airbus A330s to be delivered to Air China after 2011 in a deal worth $1.5 billion. Ethiopian Air has ordered twelve Airbus A350-900s for which Rolls Royce will be required to supply its Trent XWB engines in a deal worth $480 million.

The orders were confirmed at the Dubai Airshow at the weekend and will have been welcomed by Rolls Royce who along with every other facet of the airline industry has felt the effects of the global economic downturn. The company announced earlier this year that it was on target to meet its financial predictions but said that there could be problems associated with delays in Airbus fleet production.

Once the order by Ethiopian Air for its Trent XWB engines has been completed it will mean that Rolls Royce will have supplied over 1000 of the engines to customers worldwide. Rolls Royce claims that the Trent engine is the most environmentally friendly engine on the market. They say that the engine is also the most fuel efficient having a twenty-eight percent higher fuel efficiency rating than anything preceding the Trent generation.

Rolls Royce has engine making factories in Bristol and Derby. It also has component manufacturing plants in Sunderland and Inchinnan, close to Glasgow Airport.