Jun. 20—PARIS — Availability of CFM International's aircraft engines will increase by up to 30% next year, the company said, at a time low-fare airline Go First has filed for insolvency citing engine scarcity, and other Indian airlines struggle to add capacity due to supply chain issues.
"The MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) turnaround times are way higher than they used to be before covid. It is true on the CFM network, but it is also true on the whole industry. Basically, what happened is during covid, industry has lost a lot of specialized qualified people," president Gaël Méheust said in an interview.
CFM, which supplies engines to Indian airlines such as IndiGo, Air India, Akasa, and Vistara, said it has started hiring people and expanding engine MRO facilities.
"We are monitoring performance on a daily/weekly basis. All these steps will take time. We are foreseeing year-on-year improvement of 20-30% from now to next year. But it will take time before we are able to really come down to where we were before covid, but we are working hard on that," Méheust added.
CFM International is a joint venture between GE Aerospace of US and Safran Aircraft Engines of France. Safran S.A., the parent company, had announced plans in July 2022 to set up its largest MRO facility at Hyderabad in India for CFM Leap-1A and Leap-1B engines, popular with Indian airlines. The facility will be able to overhaul over 250 engines per year.
"We are ramping up like we have never done before. We are in the second ramp-up phase now. We had the first ramp-up before covid. We thought it was the craziest one until we reached this stage now. Supply chain has been badly damaged by covid," he added.
The engine manufacturer said it has also increased the employee strength directly interfacing with suppliers by 20% and is identifying bottlenecks with component suppliers to get the supply chain back to pre-covid level.
The company is also looking at renewed agreements with aircraft manufacturers for 2025 and beyond to take into account supply chain challenges and define order output accordingly.
"The covid crisis had a significant impact on supply chain. So, now we have agreements with air framers for delivery of engines. We are discussing with them how much supply chain can take on increase in year-on-year and this will come into agreements for 2025 and above," Méheust said.
India's largest airline IndiGo had selected CFM Leap-1A engines to power its fleet of 310 new Airbus 320neo family aircraft in May 2021 and for 280 A320neo aircraft in May 2019, choosing it over Pratt & Whitney.
"In India, we have seen customers who had selected our competition have decided to come back to us," he said.
The company remains optimistic on Indian aviation market on the back of rising numbers of air travellers, and a highly unpenetrated aviation ecosystem.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the highest populated country in the world will see high demand in aircraft and engines in the world. Only 5% Indian population has flown an airplane once; so, the potential for growth in India is absolutely incredible. So, we believe in that market," Méheust said.
Updated: 20 Jun 2023, 12:11 AM IST
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