CFM International is now delivering all new Leap-1A engines for installation on A320neo-family jets on time. While deliveries of Leap-1Bs to Boeing for 737 Maxes are still incurring minor delays, the engine-manufacturing joint venture expects to overcome remaining Leap-1B delivery delays within weeks.

Interviewed by AIN in mid-May, CFM International CEO Gaël Méheust said that for Leap-1A deliveries, “we’ve been back on schedule for quite some time.” While Leap-1Bs going to Boeing are still slightly behind schedule after being several weeks late last year, “we’re really catching up…the expectation is that within a few weeks we’ll be back on schedule” and all subsequent Leap-1B deliveries will be made on time. “Of course, the current [737 Max] grounding situation really helps with closing the gap,” he added.

CFM’s imminent success in wiping out all remaining delays in Leap-1B deliveries to Boeing comes as the GE Aviation-Safran Aircraft Engines joint venture marks up several major milestones for its CFM56 engine family, to be succeeded by the Leap family but still by an enormous margin the most successful commercial jet-engine production program in history. In addition to CFM delivering its 15,000th CFM56-7B engine for the Boeing 737NG family in April and its 10,000th CFM56-5-series engine for the Airbus A320ceo family earlier this year, in May, “As we speak, we are just passing the milestone of one billion flight hours by CFM56 engines” since the CFM56 family entered commercial service on April 24, 1982," said Méheust. (These first CFM56-2 engines were installed on a Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas DC-8 operating a flight from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia.)

Another notable milestone for CFM is that combined orders and commitments for the CFM56 and Leap families have recently passed the 50,000-engine mark, 40 years after the joint venture received its first-ever order for CFM56s. Yet another important milestone, which CFM celebrated without fanfare, is that recently it delivered the final CFM56-7B engine for installation on a commercially operated Boeing 737NG, said Méheust. CFM will reach a similar milestone early next year with the CFM56-5 when it delivers the last CFM56-5B for installation on a commercial A320ceo-family aircraft.

In addition to ending Leap delivery delays, CFM will also be able to achieve in 2019 its previously stated target of delivering 1,800-plus Leap engines this year, after delivering 1,100 in 2018. “That is still our plan at this time,” said Méheust. CFM doesn’t break out its planned Leap production totals by manufacturer, allowing the airframers to discuss their own delivery totals instead, but 2019 Leap-1B deliveries are likely to outnumber Leap-1A deliveries by some margin.

This is because all 737 Maxes are powered by the Leap-1B, while customers for the A320neo family can select either the Leap-1A or the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G-JM for their aircraft. CFM reckons that for A320neo-family orders for which engine choices have been announced to date, the Leap-1A has about a 59 percent market share. A third version of the Leap engine, the Leap-1C, powers the Comac C919, but the Chinese-built aircraft is still in certification flight-testing and so CFM is not delivering any production Leap-1Cs yet.

Although Boeing reduced its 737 Max monthly production rate from 52 aircraft to 42 in the wake of the March 13 grounding of all Maxes, CFM is maintaining the rate and schedule of Leap-1B deliveries to Boeing that it had previously agreed with the airframer. Doing so “has some virtues,” said Méheust. “It allows CFM to build on the momentum we gained last year on the historic ramp-up,” the biggest and most rapid ever for a commercial jet engine-manufacturing program. “It also helps ensure the stability of our supply chain. Boeing is completely in agreement with that.”

CFM56 Production Winds Down

In addition to assembling at least 1,800 Leap engines this year, CFM will also construct and deliver 380 CFM56s, so total CFM new-engine production in 2019 will reach nearly 2,200 engines. “That places us at our historic levels of production,” said Méheust. However, by the end of 2020, the year in which CFM expects to reach its planned full Leap production rate of 2,000-plus engines, the joint venture will have ended production of CFM56s for civil-aviation use. (A low residual level of production of CFM56-7Bs will continue well into the 2020s for military operators that have ordered the 737-800-based P-8A Poseidon and the 737-700-based 737 AEW&C Wedgetail.) Many civil-use CFM56s built in 2020 will be delivered as spare engines, but “we are really encouraging our [civil aviation] customers to look at their requirements for the future because by the end of next year we will not produce spare [CFM56] engines anymore,” said Méheust.

However, he added, “that is not the end of the program, by no means. We’re going to stop assembling CFM56 engines, but the aftermarket is huge. We expect by 2025 there will be 22,000 CFM56s flying. Out of those, 70 percent will have had zero or one shop visit, so by 2025 we see more than 3,000 shop visits a year for the CFM56. Production of parts will still represent a huge amount of effort. The aftermarket will go on for decades and we’re planning to produce [CFM56] engines [as parts] until the mid-2040s, if necessary.”

Today, as CFM56 production winds down, CFM has accumulated orders for just over 33,400 CFM56-family engines, with almost the same number delivered. CFM feels it can now say with confidence that the entire CFM56-family production run will total just under 34,000 engines, and the CFM56 will have been in production for more than 40 years by the time the engine-assembly program ends for good when deliveries of military 737NG versions end.

No other commercial or military turbofan engine in history has come close to that production total. However, if another engine ever stands a chance of doing so, it is the Leap family. Just 11 years after it launched the Leap program in 2008, CFM has accumulated orders and other purchase commitments for 17,400 Leap engines, about eight years’ worth of production at CFM’s planned full assembly rate.

At present, CFM has no plans to increase that 2,000-plus-a-year rate despite the fact that orders and options for more than 1,000 Leap-1C-powered Comac C919s are outstanding, representing more than 2,000 engines in addition to Leap-1A and Leap-1B production. This is because CFM has already taken full-rate Leap-1C production into account in its existing planned annual Leap-family assembly rate, according to Méheust.