Imagine driving your car the distance to the moon and back 30 times without ever putting it in the garage for service. Or driving the same car for 1,000 years--the time it would take to log 15 million miles and circle the earth 367 times--with nothing more than oil changes and new spark plugs.
The record a CFM56-5A engine recently achieved at Premiair compares to either of these scenarios. This engine logged 30,028 flight hours without a single shop visit in more than eight years powering an Airbus A320 with nothing more than routine line maintenance. The engine, a CFM56-5A3, was finally taken off wing for overhaul to restore fuel burn. The -5A3 is the highest thrust version of the CFM56-5A model with a takeoff thrust of 26,500 pounds (118 kN).
Premiair, a charter carrier based in Copenhagen, Denmark, operates a fleet of five CFM56-5A-powered Airbus A320-200s on lease from GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS). The airline is a division of U.K.-based Airtours and operates routes throughout Scandinavia, the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, Asia, North America, and the Caribbean.
"We congratulate Premiair for being the first CFM56-5A operator to achieve 30,000 hours without a shop visit," said Grard Laviec, president and CEO of CFM International. "We believe we build the most reliable engines in the industry, but we know that it is our customers that keep them in the air. Premiair has done an outstanding job managing its fleet."
CFM56-5 engines average nearly 16,000 hours on wing, the equivalent of about five years, before an initial shop visit, and more than 10,000 hours after overhaul; no other engine in this thrust class can match this record. The CFM56-5 also has the advantage in global cost of ownership, which is determined by such factors as shop visit rate, life-limited parts, in-flight shutdown rate, delays and cancellations, and fuel burn.
The CFM56-5 is the engine of choice for the A320 family, having been selected to power nearly 60 percent of the A318/A319/A320/A321 aircraft ordered. The CFM56-5's simple, rugged architecture gives it the highest reliability, durability, and repairability in its class.
CFM56 engines are produced by CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between Snecma Moteurs (Safran Group) of France and General Electric of the United States. CFM is the world's leading supplier of commercial aircraft engines and, over the last decade, gained more than 50 percent of all new orders for aircraft with a capacity of 100 passengers or more. Total orders for the CFM56 engine family are valued at $70 billion.