In April 1925, Frederick Rentschler, an Ohio native and former executive at Wright Aeronautical, was determined to start an aviation-related business of his own.

[5] His (offline) social network included Edward Deeds, another prominent Ohioan of the early aviation industry, and Frederick's brother Gordon Rentschler, both of whom were on the board of Niles Bement Pond, then one of the largest machine tool corporations in the world.

Pratt & Whitney Machine Tool was going through a period of self-revision at the time to prepare itself for the post-World War I era, discontinuing old product lines and incubating new ones.

Having idle factory space and capital available at this historical moment, to be invested wherever good return seemed available,[5] P&WMT saw the post-war aviation industry, both military and civil (commercial, private), as one with some of the greatest growth and development potential available anywhere for the next few decades.

George Mead soon led the next step in the field of large, state-of-the-art, air-cooled, radial aircraft engines (which the Wasp dominated) when Pratt & Whitney released its R-1690 Hornet.

Pratt & Whitney was merged with UATC's other manufacturing interests east of the Mississippi River as United Aircraft Corporation, with Rentschler as president.

In October 2014, Pratt & Whitney was awarded a $592 million contract with Department of Defense (DoD) to supply 36 F135 engines for the F-35 fighter.

[9] In November 2022, Pratt & Whitney was awarded a contract for nearly $4.4 billion by the US DoD to build 100 jet engines for the U.S. military's Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps branches.

[15] In August 2023, airlines in the US, Europe and Asia announced that they would be temporarily reducing some flights so they could inspect aircraft affected by the recall.

[citation needed] Pratt & Whitney is headquartered in East Hartford, Connecticut, and also has plants in Londonderry, New Hampshire; Springdale, Arkansas; Columbus, Georgia; Middletown, Connecticut; Middletown, Pennsylvania; Dallas, Texas; Palm Beach County, Florida; North Berwick, Maine; Aguadilla, Puerto Rico;[17] Asheville, North Carolina and Bridgeport, West Virginia.

Pratt & Whitney's large commercial engines power more than 25 percent of the world's passenger aircraft fleet and serve more than 800 customers in 160 countries.

With over 16,000 large commercial engines installed today, Pratt & Whitney provides power to hundreds of airlines and operators, from narrow-bodied airplanes to wide-bodied jumbo jetliners.

In June 2007, Pratt & Whitney's fleet of large commercial engines surpassed 1 billion flight hours of service.

[21] The facility is located in the town of Taiei near the city of Narita in the Chiba Prefecture and it primarily repairs V2500, JT8D engine parts.

In addition, Pratt & Whitney offers a global network of maintenance, repair, and overhaul facilities and military aviation service centers focused on maintaining engine readiness for their customers.

Speaking to Reuters June 16, 2013, ahead of the Paris Airshow 2013, Pratt & Whitney President David Hess said he was confident that Canada would decide to stick with the F-35 program despite its recent discussions about having a new competition.

If the orders did shift to another company, Pratt & Whitney could decide to move some of the industrial base work it is currently doing in Canada, Hess said.

Pratt & Whitney Space Propulsion provided advanced technology solutions to commercial, government and military customers for over four decades.

PWPS’ industrial turbines not only generate electrical power, but provide variable speed mechanical drive for marine propulsion, gas compression, and liquid pumping.

[29] Pratt & Whitney now markets its Ecopower pressure-washing service, which uses a high-pressure water spray run through several nozzles to clean grime and contaminants from jet engine parts, most notably turbine blades, to prevent overheating, improve engine operating efficiency and reduce fuel burn.

Customers include United Airlines, Air India, Martinair, Thai Airways International, Virgin Atlantic, and JetBlue.