Nearly 20 years ago, GE Aerospace lost out in a competition to power part of LATAM Airlines’ passenger air fleet. But what goes around sometimes eventually does come around. Case in point: This month, LATAM announced it is ordering five additional Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, all of which it plans to switch from competitor engines to GEnx-1B engines, making Chile-based LATAM the first airline in Latin America to utilize the GEnx.

The GEnx engine family has surpassed the 50 million flight hour mark in less than 12 years, the fastest rate ever for a commercial widebody engine.

Anyone who visited the GE Aerospace chalet at the Paris Air Show, on the grounds of Le Bourget Airport, came away with three distinct impressions: The market for engines is growing, lean is working, and new technologies are on the rise. The GE Aerospace team also inked a number of contracts, announcing growth in its order book across jet engines, services, avionics, and digital offerings. The deals include more than 100 GEnx-1B engines, as well as 70 CFM LEAP-1A engines, 80 CFM LEAP-1B engines, and 37 CF34-8E engines, along with multiple service contracts.

GE Aerospace’s GEnx aircraft engines powered the industry’s first wide-body aircraft on a long-haul route using Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) to India. Vistara, India’s full-service carrier and a joint venture of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, operated the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner ferry flight from Charleston, South Carolina, in the United States, to New Delhi, India, using a blend of 30% SAF with conventional jet fuel.

Air India announced on February 14 that it is buying 400 single-aisle and 70 twin-aisle commercial aircraft. To power the larger airliners — Boeing 787 and 777X twin-engine jets — the carrier signed an agreement with GE Aerospace for 40 GEnx-1B and 20 GE9X engines, plus engine services. Air India will also buy more than 800 LEAP engines from CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE and Safran Aircraft Engines, to outfit the smaller planes in the order, 210 Airbus A320/A321neo aircraft and 190 Boeing 737 MAX-family aircraft.

GE is thrilled to announce the launch of its new, $8 million Asia-Pacific Service Centre, reflecting years of successful service and hopes for an even brighter future in flight. The world-leading facility will be the largest GE Aerospace, Systems service centre in the Asia-Pacific region.

The GEnx has done it again. On October 7, a Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner named Great Barrier Reef, powered by GEnx engines, set a new long-distance record, flying 9,333 miles, reaching Darwin, Australia, from Buenos Aires in 17 hours and 25 minutes.

In August 2019, a group of assembly technicians who call themselves Team Raven completed production of the 2,000th GEnx engine at the Durham, North Carolina plant.

The oil embargo of 1973 was a miserable period when American towns banned Christmas lights to save electricity, billboards urged citizens to “turn off the damn lights” and filling stations dispensed gasoline by appointment only