By Tim Hepher <\/p>\n
FARNBOROUGH, England, July 18 (Reuters) – Jet engine maker CFM said on Saturday it was investing $2 billion over five years to help meet targets of faster maintenance \u200ctimes, part of efforts to ease engine-industry bottlenecks that have drawn fire from airlines. <\/p>\n
The \u200cworld’s largest engine maker by number of units sold said the effort by co-owners GE Aerospace and France’s Safran would also \u200baccelerate repairs, help suppliers improve deliveries and beef up spares inventory. <\/p>\n
Unexpected wear and tear in the most recent jet engines – an unplanned by-product of their significant fuel savings – has led to an industry-wide repair crisis and left jets grounded. <\/p>\n
CFM President Gael Meheust declined to be drawn on an engine industry dispute with airlines \u200cover prices, saying it was important \u2060to consider all relevant costs and engine performance. <\/p>\n
CFM, which makes engines for the Boeing 737 MAX and competes with Pratt & Whitney on the Airbus A320neo, said \u2060it had a “near-zero” level of engine-driven groundings. Pratt has reported steady improvement in maintenance delays and production issues. <\/p>\n
AIRLINE REPAIR SHOPS <\/p>\n
CFM’s aftermarket investment comes as engine makers are expected to battle for new business at next \u200bweek’s Farnborough \u200bAirshow, vying for attention with relatively muted plane orders. <\/p>\n
India’s \u200blargest carrier IndiGo could pick CFM’s \u200cLEAP to power 500 previously ordered Airbus jets, industry sources said. <\/p>\n
The deal is likely to include its own maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) shop, echoing Ireland’s Ryanair. <\/p>\n
CFM declined to comment and IndiGo could not be reached. <\/p>\n
However, there were no immediate signs of a breakthrough in talks between CFM and Turkish Airlines (THY) that overshadow a deal for 150 Boeing 737 MAX jets announced by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in \u200cWashington in September. <\/p>\n
The airline said then that the MAX \u200border, part of a wider package of 225 jets, would \u200bbe subject to engine negotiations. <\/p>\n
Industry sources said \u200bthe airline wanted under any deal to penetrate the top rung in CFM’s \u200ctiered support network by becoming a so-called \u200bPremier MRO, joining a small \u200bgroup of carriers that enjoy enhanced access to repair technology. <\/p>\n
CFM declined to comment. Turkish Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n
CFM also said it had won approval \u200bfor an upgrade that would \u200cimprove durability of LEAP-1B engines for the MAX in harsh climates, echoing a fix already \u200bavailable for Airbus. <\/p>\n
It reiterated a goal of 15% higher deliveries this year. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Tim \u200bHepher; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Andrea Ricci) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tim Hepher FARNBOROUGH, England, July 18 (Reuters) – Jet engine maker CFM said on Saturday it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[249151,114,249147,249149,249148,249150,85,47202,46,47519],"class_list":["post-548386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-boeing-737-max","tag-business","tag-cfm","tag-engine-industry","tag-engine-maker","tag-engine-makers","tag-il","tag-industry-sources","tag-israel","tag-turkish-airlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}