On the Record with
Pierre Fabre, President, CFM International

A billion dollar bright spot for CFM in the depressed airline industry was last month's order by low-fare carrier Ryanair for 100 Boeing 737-800 airplanes, with options on a further 50. That could translate into at least 300 engines for CFM, a joint venture between General Electric and Snecma of France.

But the celebrating here will remain subdued as the long-term order will not alter this year's reduced production rates for the world's best-selling turbofan engine.

"Boeing and Airbus took all engines planned last year, but this year will be much lower," CFM International president Pierre Fabre told Show News.

CMF delivered around 1,050 engines last year and took some 660 new orders. Deliveries this year will be 740-750 engines, and Fabre anticipates new orders of around 440.

"But it's kind of academic," added Fabre, who has earlier said he is not interested in publicly trying to outguess the market. "More important is to help our customers in every way we can to be as productive and efficient as possible, while preparing for better times."

His first priority is to deliver the engines already ordered, on time and up to performance, and then to support them in the field.

Second will be to continue to infuse and offer new technology to improve current engines, such as the CM56-3 core upgrade launched by Southwest Airlines that increases exhaust temperature margins by 15º Centigrade and reduces specific fuel consumption by 1%.

Third will be to manage the technology acquired in the TECH56 program to define with the airlines and airframers what best fits their needs. Fabre does not believe TECH56 will result in a new engine in the foreseeable future, "but we must define the future, and perhaps prepare a new game," he says. "If you have a very good product-which we have-and leave it alone, someone will come along with something better. So we cannot rest on our laurels."

Much of CFM's strategy aims to leverage its huge installed base of 12,400 engines on 4,800 aircraft to infuse new technology, as with Southwest. That's because Fabre doesn't believe CFM can win a much greater market share beyond its 100% on Boeing 737s and 55-56% at Airbus (or 75% of all Airbuses between 100-250 passengers). "It is difficult to do better than that in the future," he said.

It can, however, lose market share at Airbus, so CFM "is very, very active" on sales campaigns around the world, and particularly in China. It is also competing against the Pratt & Whitney JT8D-260 in a bid to re-engine NATO's AWACS aircraft, a program that could require up to 200 engines. Meanwhile the USAF's KC-135 program provides a steady piece of business with 20 of the four-engined aircraft last year and 21 slated for 2002.

By John Morris