GE Aviation secures $22B in orders at air show
GE Aviation and its joint venture partner CFM International recently received more than $22 billion in orders and commitments for its jet engines and services at the 2018 Farnborough Air Show in London, according to a press release.
The orders and commitments announced at the show include more than 1,200 engines across all major commercial airline market segments, underscoring the broad strength in the commercial airline industry, which is expected to grow by 7 percent this year, according the the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s global trade group.
Engine orders and commitments included more than 850 LEAP and CFM56 engines for the narrow-body segment, 250 CF34 engines for the regional airline segment and close to 100 GE90-115B engines and almost 50 GEnx engines, which power wide-body aircraft.
The release said GE’s growing advanced manufacturing facilities in Auburn and Huntsville-annexed Limestone County “have a major role to play in meeting demand for the new engines.”
GE Aviation’s additive manufacturing operations are centered in Auburn, where the plant will produce more than 34,000 3D-printed metal fuel nozzles this year for the CFM LEAP engine. Huntsville is home to America’s first center for mass-producing silicon carbide materials used to manufacture highly advanced ceramic matrix composites, which are able to withstand temperatures more than 500 degrees higher than those withstood by metals, at one-third the weight.
CMCs are used in the hottest part of the CFM LEAP engine, as well as the world’s largest engine, the GE9X, which is currently undergoing certification testing.