Karen Walker
What a difference a year makes. No-one is more aware of that than CFM International's (CFMI) senior management team, which now looks to the year ahead with renewed confidence following a 1999 that surpassed all expectations.
Confident, but never complacent, says officer Gerard Laviec, CFMI president and chief executive. At the beginning of 1999, Laviec and his team knew they faced a challenging year. Following 1998's record year, with orders for more than 1,300 engines, they feared that sales in 1999 would slow dramatically. "We felt that if we could get half as many orders in 1999 as we did in 1998, it would be a successful year," says Laviec.
Other challenges also loomed on the horizon. CFMI was on the brink of becoming deeply committed to its TECH56 technology programme, in terms of both validation testing and marketing; and it faced increasingly intense competition in the 100-seat narrowbody market, where the CFM56 has traditionally dominated.
"We knew we had it all ahead of us when we went into 1999," admits Bill Clapper, CFMI's executive vice-president.
How CFMI stood up against those challenges is evident from the numbers. Far from seeing a dramatic slump in orders, the US-French joint venture company logged nearly 1,000 engine sales worth some $5 billion - making 1999 the fourth-best year in company history.
In a cut-throat business, CFMI more than kept a firm grip on its market share, helped by major wins from airlines such as China Airlines, LanChile, Lufthansa and Northwest Airlines.
"We also saw a lot of reconfirmation of options, which I regard as a gauge of success because it shows that these airlines are pleased with the performance, reliability and economics of our engines," says Laviec.
There are now five CFM56 engines in service that have each clocked 30,000h without needing to be removed for repair, including one engine that has set a world record of 32,002h - the equivalent of eight years' operation.
Other highlights for the General Electric-Snecma joint venture company include Air France's decision to launch the CFM-56-5B on the Airbus A318 and the CFM56-7-powered Boeing 737 180min extended twin operations (ETOPS) certification - a first for a narrowbody aircraft.
Such a list of achievements allows CFMI to breathe a little easier this year and concentrate on its goals for 2000, including achieving a series of TECH56 major milestones. But complacency is not an option, Laviec warns.
"We are engine of choice in the single-aisle market; we are the specialist," he says. "And the single-aisle market is 80% of the total market, so we are the leader of the leader. But we must always remember who it is that made us the leader - the customer. So we can never rest and we must always invest in new technology."
Still, Laviec and his team can afford to be a little bullish. "Business is still booming," points out Laviec. "We were a little bit anxious about Asia, but Asia has recovered and there is now no dark cloud in the sky."
Source: Flight Daily News
