BERLIN, GERMANY May 11, 2006 Condor Berlin and CFM International today celebrated 100,000 take-offs and the achievement of 500,000 engine flight hours with the charter carrier's fleet of 14 CFM56-5A/5B-powered Airbus 320 aircraft.
CFM56-5 engines are produced by CFM International, a 50/50 joint company between Snecma (Safran Group) and General Electric Company. CFM is the world's leading supplier of commercial aircraft engines with more than 15,600 engines in service with more than 450 operators worldwide.
Condor Berlin has been operating CFM56-5A-powered A320 aircraft since February 1998. Since 2005, the carrier added two additional A320s powered by the CFM56-5B. The airline's parent company, Condor Flugdienst GmbH, celebrated its 50th anniversary in March.
"On behalf of the entire CFM Team worldwide, I congratulate Condor Berlin on achieving this great milestone," said Eric Bachelet, president and CEO of CFM International. "We've built a great relationship together over the last eight years and believe it will only continue to strengthen and grow over time."
The CFM56-5A was the launching engine on the Airbus A320 and first entered service in 1988, and the -5A/-5B are the engines of choice for the A320 family, powering nearly 60 percent of the aircraft on order. One of the primary factors behind the CFM56-5's broad-based acceptance has been its simple, rugged architecture, which gives it the highest reliability, durability, and repairability in its class. CFM56-5 engines average 16,000 hours on wing prior to 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 CFM56-5A-powered A320 fleet currently in service has logged more than 31.5 million engine flight hours and 19 million cycles.