During a press conference at Paris Air Show on June 18, Pierre Fabre, President and CEO of CFM International, Bill Clapper (General Electric) and François Planaud (Snecma), both Executive Vice Presidents Project General Managers, announced a new world record set by a CFM56 engine.
This engine, a CFM56-3 fitted on a Boeing 737-500 delivered to Hapag-Lloyd in 1990 and leased by the Hungarian company Malev since 1999, has logged 40,000 hours and 17,000 cycles without a single removal, setting a new world high-cycle single-aisle aircraft record for time on wing. Such a performance is significant since engines powering short and medium-haul jetliners operate in very demanding conditions, with very high hours to cycles ratio. At its current utilization rate, the Malev engine may well beat the current world record of 40,531 hours by August 2003.
During the conference, Pierre Fabre also analyzed the current situation of the civil aircraft market. Despite a lasting crisis (traffic will not return to 2000 levels until 2004), CFMI won major orders from easyJet, Virgin Blue, Ryanair, Southwest and All Nippon Airways, at the beginning of the year. The CFM56 engines remain the standard for the single-aisle aircraft market. Production should level out at about 600 engines per year through 2006.
François Planaud then stressed the CFM56 engine family highlights and presented the different upgrade kits for CFM56-3, -5B et -5C. By the end of 2003, 14 000 engines will have been delivered, among which 3,000 CFM56-7B and 1,500 CFM56-5B. Bill Clapper closed the press conference focusing on the TECH56 program and the technological solutions that will be validated by the end of the year.