Deutsche Lufthansa and CFM International today announced the selection of the CFM56-5B to power four new Airbus A320 aircraft in a firm engine order valued at approximately $60 million U.S. at list price. The aircraft order was announced in September of this year and the airline will take delivery in 2012 and 2013.
Lufthansa, which is part of the Lufthansa Aviation Group, currently operates a fleet of 80 CFM-powered Airbus A319/A320/A321 and 26 long-range, four-engine A340-300 aircraft. In addition, Lufthansa operates 63 CFM56-powered Boeing 737 Classics thus totaling some 390 CFM engines in their operational fleet. Including the other Group members Germanwings, British Midland, Austrian, and Swiss, the number of CFM56 engines operated in the Group totals more than 650.
Since its foundation, Lufthansa has been a driving force behind commercial aviation. In recent years, the airline has been one of the industry's strongest proponents of "green" technology that reduces the impact of aviation on the environment, particularly noise and emissions.
All of Lufthansa's new engines will be the CFM56-5B Performance Improvement Package (PIP) configuration. The -5B PIP completed extensive ground testing and more than 26 hours of flight testing on the A320. The engine, which is the new production configuration for the CFM56-5B, entered service earlier this month.
The improvements, which provide a 0.5% improvement in fuel burn, include hardware changes to the core, including new high-pressure turbine blade, as well as manufacturing changes the fan and compressor blades and vanes to improve performance retention. The engine will maintain the same noise signature as the current production engine. These engines also meet current International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) Committee of Aviation Environmental Protection standards (CAEP /6) requirements.
CFM56-5B engines are a product of CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between Snecma (Safran group) and GE. CFM, the world's leading supplier of commercial aircraft engines, has delivered nearly 23,000 engines to date. The CFM56-5B engine powers every model of the Airbus A320 family and has been chosen to power nearly 60 percent of all A320 aircraft in service or on order.