Irish aircraft lessor AerCap has reached an agreement covering the purchase of 150 CFM International Leap engines, which will be used as spares for its growing fleet of Airbus A320neo-family jets and Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
AerCap on 8 May said it agreed the deal with both Safran Aircraft Engines, which co-owns CFM with partner GE Aerospace, and Shannon Engine Support (SES), an AerCap-Safran joint venture.
“The additional engines will deliver in line with the growing fleet of in-service Boeing 737 Max and Airbus A320neo-family aircraft,” says AerCap, which puts the list-price value of the agreement at $3 billion.
The lessor calls the agreement “a deal… for the purchase of 150 new CFM Leap spare engines”, though it does not specify whether those are all firm orders. SES will manage the engines, says AerCap.
The lessor manages or owns 322 Leap-powered jets, according to Cirium fleets data: 63 Leap-1B-engined 737 Max and 266 Leap-1A-equipped A320/A321neos. AerCap also holds unfilled orders for another 81 Airbus and 114 Boeing jets that will have Leap turbofans.
“The most scarce asset in the industry is an engine, and we have more of those than anyone else,” AerCap chief executive Aengus Kelly says.
