CFM International’s Leap turbofan deliveries slipped 13% year on year in the first quarter to 319 units amid stubborn supply chain issues, a decrease coming as the manufacturer aims to hike full-year shipments by 15-20%.
The engine maker, however, has made recent progress rolling out a critical Leap durability update that includes redesigned turbine blades.
GE Aerospace, which co-owns CFM with Safran Aircraft Engines and produces the engine’s hot section, disclosed delivery figures when reporting first-quarter results on 22 April.
CFM’s delivery of 319 Leaps in the first quarter compares to 367 shipments in the same period of 2024.
The company aims to significantly ramp output in 2025, with a goal of delivering 15-20% more Leaps this year than last. CFM delivered 1,407 of the engines in 2024, meaning it needs to hand over 1,618 to 1,688 Leaps this year to meet the goal.
Speaking during the first-quarter earnings call, GE chief executive Lawrence Culp says he expects CFM will hit the 15-20% delivery bump.
He also says all Leap-1As being shipped to Airbus for the A320neo family now include a “durability kit” intended to extend the life of components that have proven less durable than expected. Engines operated in dusty regions like the Middle East have been particularly affected.
The durability kit, which the US Federal Aviation Administration certificated late last year, includes redesigned high-pressure turbine blades and new high-pressure turbine stage one fuel nozzles and nozzle supports.
GE and Safran are also developing similar improvements for Leap-1Bs, which power Boeing’s 737 Max.
The updated turbine blades have a “simpler design” and are easier to produce, helping speed production and supporting the “15% to 20% growth in Leap deliveries we expect in 2025”, Culp says.
The durability kit also “enables the Leap-1A to achieve CFM56 levels of time-on-wing”, he adds.
But some insiders are convinced new-generation turbofans like Leaps and Pratt & Whitney’s competing PW1000G, due to burning hotter and at higher pressure, will never be as durable as previous-generation powerplants like CFM56s.
“They’ll never make that robust of an engine again”, Jonathan Berger, managing director at Alton Aviation Consultancy, says of CFM and its CFM56. “They had teething pains at first [also], but they were able to fix them quickly.”
“The CFM56 is probably the best engine that’s ever been built, and the Leap engine and the GTF are not,” Avelo Airlines chief executive Andrew Levy told FlightGlobal late last year.
Avelo operates CFM56-powered 737NGs.
“Is the [Leap] going to stay on wing as long? No way. It can’t,” Levy added.
Story corrected on 23 April to replace one mention of “fan blades” with “turbine blades”.
