CFM International has strengthened its market position in India with Air India recently finalising orders with the engine maker for over 800 LEAP engines to power its new fleet of 210 Airbus A320neo/ A321neo and 190 Boeing 737 MAX family jetliners.
Air India’s latest deal with CFM also includes a multi-year services agreement that will cover its entire LEAP engine fleet.
Campbell Wilson, CEO and Managing Director, Air India said the introduction on a greater scale of the LEAP engine as well as the services agreement will help the airline optimise its operations in terms of environmental footprint and operational cost.
Air India’s order for 800 LEAP engines includes 420 LEAP-1A, 380 LEAP-1B, plus spares and is CFM’s largest ever engine order. LEAP-1A engines are an engine option on Airbus’ A320neo aircraft family, which can also be ordered with Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine. The LEAP-1B engine, meanwhile, is the sole powerplant for Boeing’s 737 MAX jetliner. There are over 400 LEAP engines in service with Indian carriers today.
The Air India order is another testament to CFM’s success in India with the LEAP engine family, which has overcome initial competition from Pratt & Whitney’s GTF engines. CFM has also benefited from orders by Akasa Air.
Go First’s highly publicised implosion for which the airline blamed woes related to its Pratt & Whitney GTF engines has also helped CFM. In Go First’s application for voluntary insolvency in May to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the airline stated that its fleet of grounded aircraft had increased from 31% in 2020 to more than 50% in April 2023.
Growth Market
In June, IndiGo announced a record order for 500 A320 family aircraft – the biggest single purchase agreement in the history of commercial aviation – but is yet to announce its engine choice. IndiGo has already ordered 1,180 LEAP-1A engines, announced in May 2021 (620 engines) and June 2019 (560 engines). CFM’s LEAP-1A engines will power all its new Airbus A320neo, A321neo and A321 XLR jetliners.
Air India first announced its intention to opt for CFM LEAP engines in February. The airline has been a CFM customer since 2002, when it started operating Airbus A320ceo single-aisle jetliners powered by CFM56-5B engines. The airline was also the first Indian LEAP-1A operator, inducting the A320neo into its fleet in 2017.
At present, Air India has 24 A320neo and 5 A321neo jetliners powered by LEAP-1A engines. The airline will be able to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions with LEAP engines, which will not only enhance the carrier’s operational efficiency but also help it with its sustainability targets.
While CFM has large orders for the LEAP-1A, it also has a growing order book for the LEAP-1B engine, which has been ordered by Air India and Akasa Air for their Boeing 737 MAX fleets. Akasa Air ordered LEAP-1B engines valued at nearly $4.5 billion (at list prices) in November 2021. Akasa Air’s order for at least 144 engines, coupled with Air India’s order for 380 engines, takes the order book from both airlines to over 520 LEAP-1B engines.
Akasa Air, which commenced operations with its first 737-8 in 2022, added four additional aircraft to its order book in June. It presently operates a fleet of 19 737-8s with total orders for 76 aircraft – 23 737-8s and 53 high-capacity 737-8-200s. SpiceJet presently operates a fleet of 13 737 MAX 8 jetliners.
Boeing 737 MAX jetliners powered by LEAP-1B engines deliver a 14% improvement in fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions as compared to the older 737NG jetliners fitted with CFM56 engines.
In Lead Position
LEAP is the fastest selling commercial aero engine in aviation history. CFM has now delivered over 5,000 LEAP engines with approximately 10,000 orders in backlog. The LEAP engine market is already forecast to be 50% bigger than its predecessor, the highly succesful CFM56 engine.
With Airbus targeting a production rate of 70 A320neo family jetliners every month, CFM will need to deliver 1,680 LEAP engines on an annual basis to the European airframer alone.
CFM had delivered 1,736 LEAP engines in 2019, which then dropped to 815 engines in 2020 and 845 in 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company was able to deliver 1,136 LEAP engines in 2022 and plans to deliver 1,700 engines this year. The engine maker is eying a planned increase in deliveries to more than 2,000 LEAP engines in 2024.
Since its entry into service in 2016, the LEAP engine family has made one of the fastest accumulations of flight hours in commercial aviation history, amassing more than 35 million engine flight hours and 15 million flight cycles.
The highly succesful CFM56 engine fleet has now logged over 1.2 billion flight hours and 645 million flight cycles, more than any other product in commercial aviation history. There are over 14,000 aircraft powered with CFM56 engines.
LEAP engine operators have been able to save more than 25 million tons of CO2 emissions as compared to the same flights operated previously using older generation engines. Moreover, LEAP engines deliver up to 20 % savings in fuel consumption and lower CO2 emissions over older engines.
The LEAP engine uses 3D woven Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) carbon fibre composites for its fan blades and fan case, which helps reduce engine weight by 250 kg per engine. In addition to the weight savings of 500 kg for twin-engine applications, the 3D RTM technology is highly impact resistant and has reduced the engine’s maintenance requirements as well. Each LEAP engine also contains metal 3D-printed fuel nozzles, which are up to 25% lighter than traditional nozzles.
The engine also makes use of parts made from advanced, lighter-weight, more heat-resistant materials, including Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) that can handle temperatures approaching 2,400 °F or 1,315 °C.
LEAP-1A and LEAP-1B engines, today power over 2,713 aircraft with 165 operators and LEAP engine fleet leaders have already accumulated over 18,000 flight hours and more than 10,000 cycles. Despite being a relatively new engine, packed with advanced technologies, the LEAP-1A achieved a better Time on Wing (TOW) performance as compared to the CFM56-5B in its third year of deliveries, since entry in service in 2016.
The first LEAP-1A-powered Airbus A320neo entered service in August of 2016 and the first LEAP-1B-powered Boeing 737 MAX entered service in May of 2017. Both fleets have a dispatch reliability rate of more than 99.95 %.
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