General Electric Co's aviation unit is working on a new fuel-efficient jet engine for the next generation of workhorse single-aisle aircraft. No 1 jet engine maker GE is positioning its "eCore" engine, which it says would be 16 percent more fuel-efficient than the current class of comparable engines and would be available by the middle of the next decade, to compete with rival Pratt & Whitney's forthcoming geared turbofan engine.
"Oil's gone from $40 a barrel to $140. So we've seen a real transition as to what is the pressure point for the next-generation narrow body," David Joyce, president and chief executive of GE's aviation unit, said in an interview.
Energy efficiency will be a big part of GE's pitch for the eCore engine at this week's Farnborough International Airshow in Britain. Pinched by surging fuel prices, US carriers including Northwest Airlines Corp and AMR Corp's American Airlines have cut capacity, slashed jobs and imposed new fees in an effort to maintain profitability.
The eCore jet engine, which Joyce said would be ready for service by about 2016, applies new materials and technologies developed for GE's larger jet engines to make a small engine more efficient. It is a different approach than the one taken by United Technologies Corp's Pratt unit, the world's second-largest maker of jet engines, in its geared turbofan.
That Pratt engine, due to go into service by 2013, places a gearing system between the energy-producing core and front fan, to allow each system to turn at its most efficient speed.
The world's leading plane makers-Boeing Co and Airbus, a unit of European aerospace group EADS - have been in no rush to completely redesign their smaller, shorter-range single-aisle aircraft, which are still selling well. Part of the reason the aircraft makers have held off on designing new smaller planes, they say, is the wait for a new generation of more fuel-efficient engines. Rolls-Royce Group Plc is the No 3 player in the global aircraft engine market. Aerospace stocks have slumped in recent weeks among investors' concerns that demand for new jets and rides in them has peaked.
But Joyce said the GE continues to see new engine orders and said growth in flights outside the United States could keep the industry on an upward track. "At this point in time, the global market is still showing some moderate growth," he said. "It's fuelled more by international traffic, but it certainly is showing some moderate growth."