Production glitches and durability deficiencies have resulted in CFM International having to address a delivery delay for its Leap turbofan family of four to five weeks, a deficit CFM executive vice president and general manager François Bastin characterized as certainly surmountable by the end of the year as the company triples its weekly Leap output from 2017's rate. Speaking during a Thursday briefing to lay groundwork for CFM’s activities at the Singapore Airshow, Bastin noted that CFM’s production rate has reached more than 20 per week and that the company plans to build between 1,100 and 1,200 Leaps by the end of the year. It delivered 459 last year.

“It’s not a walk in the park, of course; it was never meant to be,” he said. “So we have some disruptions and we are working to address them. We are a handful of weeks behind demand, which is always too much. Anything but zero is too much. At the same time it is that much and only that much. If you look at the grand scheme of things...it’s a tremendous ramp-up that had been set years ago. So we are keeping pace I would say.”

CFM executive vice president and GE Aviation’s CFM program general manager Allen Paxson reported that the Leap-1A and Leap 1-B together have registered a 96-percent utilization rate despite the need to retrofit starter air valves and pull and inspect some 70 turbine disks in Airbus A320neos’ Leap-1As. Paxson said that CFM has completed the valve retrofits and more than half of the turbine disk inspections, which he said the company would finish in about three months. Finally, Paxson reported no fleet disruptions caused by an exhaust-gas temperature (EGT) margin degradation associated with peeling of ceramic matrix composite coatings on the shrouds of Leap-1As and the Boeing 737 Max jets’ Leap-1Bs.

“We’re still showing 96 percent or better utilization rates with this new product, which is outstanding,” he stressed. “There’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes to make sure that happens.

“We have capability for increased EGT margin in both the Leap-1A and -B engines, so we’re in process of taking advantage of that and releasing more capability in the engines to mitigate any EGT loss,” added Paxson. “At the same time obviously we’re improving the shrouds themselves, to provide coatings that have less EGT deterioration impact going forward.”

Paxson praised the company’s support team for its response to all the operators’ early problems, including those in North America that encountered frozen sensor lines resulting from lengthy cold soakings. “Again, our team got after that and within days had that managed, not only for those customers in North America but for the entire world, and put that issue, in terms of a disruption, behind us,” he said.

CFM’s support organization now employs more than 250 field service engineers and operates 10 overhaul shops, eight component repair shops, 15 on-site support locations, five customer training facilities, and four material distribution centers.