EVENDALE, OHIO December 17, 2002 In the single largest commercial aircraft engine order in five years, easyJet today ordered CFM56-5B engines to power 120 firm Airbus A319 aircraft. The firm engine order is valued at $1.2 billion at list price over the life of the contract; easyJet holds purchase rights for 120 additional aircraft.
The order is subject to the successful conclusion of the contract between easyJet and Airbus for 120 A319 aircraft, with options with price protection on a further 120 Airbus aircraft. easyJet expects this to be concluded in the New Year.
CFM56-5B engines are produced by CFM International (CFM), a 50/50 joint company between Snecma Moteurs (Safran Group) of France and General Electric Company. With 13,500 engines in service, CFM is the world's leading aircraft engine supplier. Prior to this order, the company had received orders for 562 engines to power 61 percent of the total firm 100+ passenger aircraft ordered this year.
easyJet, which recently completed its merger with Go, is now the largest low-fare carrier in Europe. The airline will take delivery of the new A319 aircraft between 2003 and 2007. The airline's fleet, among the youngest, most modern in the industry, currently consists of 64 CFM-powered 737 aircraft.
"We are obviously very pleased with this new order," says Michel Buret, CFM Sales Director, "easyJet performed an exhaustive evaluation and this order is testament to the quality of our product and validation of our long-term strategy."
CFM56 engines offer the highest reliability and lowest cost of ownership of any engine in this thrust class. Over the past 20 years, the CFM56 family has become the workhorse of commercial fleets worldwide. The CFM56-5B is the only engine that offers one bill of materials for the entire A318/A319/A320/A321 family. Since the engine first entered service in 1994, nearly 1,300 aircraft have been delivered. This fleet has logged more than nine million flight hours and five million cycles with the best reliability on the A320 family