2022 turned out to be a pretty good year.
2022 saw an improvement in the number of large civil jet engines on firm order, the largest annual engine order intake since 2019, the largest number of annual engine installs since 2019 and the smallest number of engine order cancellations since 2018.
It was a pretty good year but clearly there is a long way to go before the order book, the order intake and the number of engine installs gets back to pre-2019 levels. Engine order cancellations last year were exactly half the number of cancellations in 2020 and a little bit more than half the number in 2021. The worst year for engine order cancellations was 2020, the first year of the pandemic.
The gain in the number of engines on firm order last year was very much due to the gain in the number of single-aisle engines on firm order; up 834 since the start of the year and 830 since the start of 2021. The number of widebody engines on firm order dropped last year by 104 and has dropped by 152 in the last two years. Despite this, the total number of engines on firm order at the end of last year was 730 larger than at the start of the year and 678 larger than at the start of 2021. There were 1,236 fewer engines on order than at the start of 2020, the first year of the pandemic when the engine order book dropped every month.
Last year the largest order book gains were recorded by the LEAP-1A and LEAP-1B, up 596 and 374 engines respectively. The third largest gain involved the GEnx, up 120 engines, and then the PW1500G, up 104 engines. The GEnx, GE9X, GE90 and PW4000 were the only widebody engine programs with order book gains.
Three single-aisle and five widebody engine programs currently have larger order books than at the start of 2021, two years ago. The LEAP-1B has the largest gain, up 596 engines (the same gain as the number of LEAP-1A engines in 2022) followed by the PW1100G, up 302 engines. These were followed by the GE9X and GEnx which both had gains of 88 engines, and then the PW1500G, up 80.
The engine order intake last year was the largest annual intake since 2019. There were orders for 3,214 single-aisle engines, nearly 400 more than in 2021 but 266 fewer than in 2019. In 2018 there were orders for 3,210 single-aisle engines, four fewer than in 2022. In addition, there were orders for 568 widebody engines last year, coincidentally the same number as were ordered in 2020 and 2021 put together, but the total was 252 fewer than in 2019 and 346 fewer than were ordered in 2018.
There were orders for 2,772 LEAP engines last year, 1,072 more than in 2021. This was made up of 1,378 LEAP-1A engines, over 1,100 more than in 2021, and 1,394 LEAP-1B engines, 104 fewer than in 2021. P&W’s GTF program took orders for 442 engines last year, some 640 fewer than in 2021.
Two GE engine programs took more orders last year than in 2021 and, in total, GE’s engine order intake was 134 larger than in the previous year (234 engines in 2021 and 368 last year). The GE9X took orders for 66 more engines than in 2021 and the GEnx took orders for 144 more engines. Pratt & Whitney’s PW4000 program took orders for 42 engines last year, 12 fewer than in 2021. Rolls Royce had two engine programs with more engine orders than in 2021; the Trent 1000 took orders for 18 more engines and the Trent XWB took orders for 56 more. In total, Rolls-Royce took orders for 158 widebody engines last year which was 58 more than in 2021.
The widebody engine manufacturers had a terrible year in 2020 with total orders for 180 engines, down from the 820 in 2019. Last year GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney took more widebody engines than in 2019 but the Rolls-Royce order intake was 384 engines lower. In the last three years, i.e. since the pandemic began, there have been gross orders for 1,136 widebody engines with 496 cancellations. GE has taken orders for 734 engines over the last three years, 64.6% of the total. Pratt & Whitney has taken orders for 100 PW4000 engines in that time which is 8.8% of the total. Rolls-Royce’s intake in the last three years is 302 engines, fractionally over one quarter of the total.
Engine installs: Last year there were 372 more engine installs than in 2021. The number of single-aisle engine installs increased by 322 and the number of widebody engine installs increased by 50.
The single-aisle engine install total last year was the largest annual total since 2018 (when there were 562 more) and the widebody engine install total last year was the second lowest after 2021 in well over 10 years. In 2019 there were 500 more widebody engine installs.
CFM56 install numbers dropped by 60 engines to 24 last year. This had long been anticipated. It was another record year for LEAP installs with a total of 1,334 which is 286 more than in 2021 and which included the first LEAP-1C installs. There were 556 P&W GTF engine installs, 96 more than in 2021 and just 26 fewer than the 582 in 2019 which was the record year for GTF installs.
There were 166 GE widebody engine installs last year, 22 more than in 2021. P&W had 30 PW4000 engine installs which was four more than in 2021 and Rolls-Royce had 188 engine installs. This is 24 more than in 2021 but it is important to note that in 2021 there were 20 Trent 900 installs and there were none last year. The four other active Rolls-Royce engine programs all had more installs last year with a combined gain of 44 engines.
Engine install numbers tend to increase at the end of each year and this happened again last year. In December there were 336 engine installs, the largest number for a single month since 2019. It was made up of 278 single-aisle and 58 widebody engine installs. The single-aisle figure was the largest for a single month since December 2018 and the widebody figure was the largest for a single month since December 2020.
Quarterly engine install numbers reflect a similar year-end trend. The Fourth Quarter total of 762 installs last year was the largest for a single quarter since Q4 of 2018. The Fourth Quarter total of 612 single-aisle engine installs was also the largest for a single quarter since Q4 of 2018 but the Fourth Quarter widebody install total of 150 was two engines short of the Q4 2020 figure so was the second largest for a single quarter since Q4 of 2019.