General Electric has bagged a contract worth $230 million to supply jet engines to an airline that has ordered 787 Dreamliners from Boeing. The airline, Uzbekistan Airways, has picked GEnx-1B engines for the four Boeing 787-8 aircraft it has acquired. Deliveries are expected to start next year. GE will also deliver a spare engine that has been custom-ordered.
“The GEnx-1B is the leading engine of choice for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. We’re happy to strengthen our collaboration with the aim to provide state-of-art technologies to the Uzbekistan Airways aircraft,” said GE Aviation’s general manager of Global Marketing & Sales and vice president, Chaker Chahrour.
Central Asia
So far over GEnx-1B engines numbering more than 1,600 have been bought by 51 customers. When compared to the CF6 engine, also developed and manufactured by General Electric, GEnx-1B is 15% more fuel efficient and this also makes the engine emit 15% less carbon gases. General Electric’s ecoimagination product portfolio, of which GEnx-1B is part of, is aimed enhancing both the operating and environmental performance of customers.
The GEnx is also the quietest jet engine General Electric has ever produced and this is because its fan blades are large and more efficient. Their operating tip speed is also slower and this leads to a reduction in noise levels by up to 40%.
Predix platform
The jet engine order from Uzbekistan Airways comes at a time when GE Aviation has been strengthening its push with regards to building digital bridges between MRO providers, operators and aircraft owners. Consequently GE Aviation has managed to connect quick-access recorders from Teledyne with the Predix platform. It is now expected that the first carrier will be soon be connected to the configuration data exchange.
The integration between GE’s preventive maintenance platform, Predix, and quick-access recorders offers the automatic flow of data between recorders and General Electric’s platform. This initiative that is being carried out in collaboration with Teledyne Controls was announced in 2016. Under the initiative Teledyne equipment will be used as they are present on around 50% of Boeing aircraft and in 70% of the new generation Airbus jets. The primary uses of the equipment is to transmit data post-flight and flight operations data to the flight deck.
