CFM: LEAP engine orders exceed 10,000

Jet engine manufacturer CFM International (West Chester, OH, US) reported on Feb. 8 that the company booked a total of 2,154 engines in 2015, including 736 CFM56 engines (commercial, military and spares) and 1,418 composites-intensive LEAP engines (including spares).

To date in 2016 the company has recorded nearly 600 engine orders received in January. At the same time, the LEAP engine has now surpassed 10,000 total engine orders and commitments (excluding options) at a value of $140 billion U.S. at list price.

CFM continues to achieve historic production rates for the CFM56 product line. The company produced 1,638 CFM56 engines in 2015, compared to 1,560 engines in 2014 and 1,502 in 2013. CFM says that it maintains the highest production rate in the industry and has consistently built more than 1,000 CFM56 engines per year since 2006.

"We are honored that airline customers around the world continue to show a preference for CFM engines," says Jean-Paul Ebanga, president and CEO of CFM International. "The CFM56 family is still going strong and we believe LEAP orders raise even higher as our technology choices prove themselves out in the flight test programs at Airbus and Boeing.

[Click here for a CW report on the manufacture of carbon fiber fan blades for the LEAP engine.]

“Our 2015 orders bring the current backlog to more than 13,400 engines and our biggest challenge now is building them all. To meet that challenge, GE and Snecma have invested nearly $1 billion U.S. to date in new and upgraded facilities that incorporate today’s most advanced manufacturing technology. Our goal is to ensure that each new LEAP engine is delivered on time with the same level of quality and reliability our customers have come to expect from a CFM product."

This year marks the start of the transition to LEAP engine production, with more than 140 units in the plan. The company expects to complete the transition by 2020, with an annual production rate of more than 2,000 engines. CFM will continue to build CFM56 spare engines for many years to support the in-service fleet and plans to produce spare parts for the program until around the year 2045.

The CFM56 and LEAP engines are products of CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between Snecma (Safran) and GE. CFM is the world’s leading supplier of commercial aircraft engines, with more than 29,000 delivered to date to more than 550 operators around the globe.