GE Ready for CFM Ramp-up

Airframers have tasked engine manufacturers GE Aviation (Chalet 142) and France's Safran Aircraft Engines (Hall 2a A252) to produce 800 additional CFM56 and LEAP engines through their CFM International joint venture over the next four years. “We’re ready for the ramp,” declared GE Aviation president and CEO David Joyce.

“Over the last year we’ve been asked by Airbus and Boeing to add an additional 800 engines—CFMs and LEAPs—between now and 2020,” Joyce told reporters on Monday at the Paris Air Show. “We’ve been working through slowing the rate of reduction [of CFM56s] down and trying to get more ramp into the LEAP to the best of our ability to the tune of about 800 engines” between 2017-2020, he explained.

In total, CFM International this year will build 1,400 legacy CFM56s for narrowbody aircraft and 500 LEAP-series engines for Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max airliners, Joyce said. The number of LEAP engines scales to 2,100 in 2020. Joyce didn’t explain why airframers have requested additional engines inserted in the production totals, saying only that demand for both engines has improved.

The joint venture and GE Aviation have produced 68 percent of all engines produced for commercial service over the last five years, so the ramp-up is something the companies can deal with, he said. The enginemakers have prepared by actively “stress-testing” their supplier base to deliver components, and 90 percent of CFM International parts have at least two sources.

“These rates we’re talking about—this is not an extrapolation for us, it’s an interpolation,” Joyce said. “We’ve stress-tested our system and our suppliers. Certainly the transition is quick but we feel really comfortable with where we are on the rate.”

For its own commercial and military product range, GE Aviation is “eyeballing $15 billion” in new engines and services at this year’s Paris Air Show, Joyce said