Will Power Five Dreamliners

Royal Air Maroc announced Friday it has finalized its selection of the GEnx engines to power its five Boeing 787 aircraft, in a deal valued at more than $100 million. Delivery will begin in October 2008.

Royal Air Maroc operates more than 44,000 flights/year on 60 routes over 30 countries in Europe, Africa, North Africa and Middle East.

The GEnx is based on the GE90 architecture. It will succeed GE's CF6 engine family, the best-selling engine on wide-body aircraft. It is designed to provide significantly better specific fuel consumption and payload performance than GE's older powerplants.

The GEnx engine is the world's only jet engine with both a front fan case and fan blades made of composites, which provide for greater engine durability, weight reduction and lower operating costs. The fan blades will utilize GE90 composite technology, with no routine on-wing maintenance required and no in-service issue for almost a decade. The GEnx will operate with 18 fan blades (50 percent fewer than the CF6) at noise levels lower than any large GE commercial engine.

The GEnx also features a new combustor for efficient fuel mixing before ignition, resulting in significantly lower NOx levels.

FMI: www.ge.com, www.royalairmaroc.com/ENG/