Next-Generation Plane Engines take a LEAP Toward Delivery

07.11.2016

If there’s one key selling point that aerospace giants Airbus and Boeing have both been using in marketing their new aircraft, it is fuel efficiency.

If there’s one key selling point that aerospace giants Airbus and Boeing have both been using in marketing their new aircraft, it is fuel efficiency.



But neither of the two major plane makers is directly responsible for much of the promised improvement in fuel usage.

It is, in fact, largely down to French company Safran and GE, whose joint venture CFM International is making the LEAP motors that will power most of the next-generation of the planes that will be the future workhorses of airlines.

The promise of 15% to 20% fuel savings moved closer as LEAP engines made their first flight tests that are a key step for the Airbus320neo to enter service next year and Boeing’s B737 MAX in 2017 as planned.

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