Turkish budget carrier Pegasus has started scheduled service with the first Airbus A320neo powered by Leap-1A engines, manufacturer CFM International confirms.

The start of revenue flights with the Leap-1A-equipped twinjet began with a domestic flight from Istanbul to Antalya which departed at 09:30 today, online flight tracking services indicate. Three more flights between that city-pair were completed by 15:25.

Pegasus took delivery of the aircraft (registration: TC-NBA) at Airbus's Hamburg plant on 19 July.

The airline has orders for up to 100 re-engined A320neos.

Airbus has delivered at least 10 A320neos powered by the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G geared turbofan since January. However, the pace of deliveries has been slowed by a design issue which extends the engine-start sequence.

P&W delivered the first so-called "golden engine" with hardware modifications to fix that problem to Lufthansa on 1 August.

Source: Cirium Dashboard