Virgin America announced yesterday that it plans to equip the 30 A320neos with Leap-X engines from CFM International. The airline has also ordered CFM’s CFM56-5B engines for a simultaneous order for 30 A320s. The total order is worth $1.4 billion at list prices.
Before now, most of the orders for engines to power the new A320 neo went to Pratt & Whitney for its PW1100G geared turbofan engine, which came slightly ahead in a survey conducted by Airline Economics earlier in the year. Equally, lessors and airlines have indicated that they prefer the GTF option for a number of reasons but mainly because it has gears, which means the fan and the turbines operate at optimal speeds and also because it does not contain too complex technology, such as the Leap X engine, that means it will be cheaper to maintain and stay on wing for longer. That’s the theory at least and neither engine is on wing yet.
Further orders the Leap-X are expected to be announced next week at Paris along with the predicted hundreds of orders for the A320neo.
International Lease Finance Corporation is probably going to be among the customers announcing Leap X orders as it stated when it ordered 100 A320neos that it planned to use Pratt & Whitney’s engine for only 60 of its aircraft, leaving 40 for CFM to snap up.
CFM is also the only western engine manufacturer to supply engines for the Chinese made C919, with the Leap-X. Pratt & Whitney’s GTF engine is also offered on Bombardier’s CSeries, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp’s MRJ Regional Jet, and Russia’s Irkut MS-21.
Meanwhile, Cebu Air has announced an order for 37 new Airbus aircraft – 30 new A321s and seven A320s. The deal is worth $3.8 billion at list price and is the largest single aircraft order ever made by a Philippine airline.
The airline currently operates a fleet of 25 Airbus and eight ATR 72-500 aircraft.