Methods and systems for operating a gas turbine engine in a multi-engine aircraft are described. The method comprises operating the gas turbine engine in a standby mode to provide substantially no motive power to the aircraft when another engine of the multi-engine aircraft is operated in an active mode to provide motive power to the aircraft, transitioning the gas turbine engine from the standby mode to the non-standby mode, and applying pulse width modulation to an air switching system of the gas turbine engine while transitioning the gas turbine engine from the standby mode to the non-standby mode.