U.S. Navy orders new engine cores for its P-8A fleet

The U.S. Navy has awarded CFM International a $490 million contract to supply up to 24 replacement engine cores for its P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft, with half reserved for the Navy’s own fleet and half for allied militaries that fly the same plane.

The Naval Air Systems Command deal covers up to 12 CFM56-7B27AE core engines for the U.S. Navy and up to 12 more for Foreign Military Sales customers, plus a single CFM56-7B24E core engine for the Navy’s C-40A transport jet. It is a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract, meaning the Navy sets a ceiling now and places individual orders against it as money becomes available. No funds are obligated yet. The contract also covers engine covers, stands and cradles used to ship and store the hardware, and runs through an estimated completion date of September 2031.

A core engine is the inner section of a jet engine, the compressor, combustion chamber and turbine, without the fan and surrounding nacelle. Navy and contractor maintenance depots typically swap in a new core rather than replace an entire engine when a Poseidon’s powerplant needs a major overhaul, which cuts cost and downtime compared with buying complete replacement engines.

The P-8A is Boeing’s militarized version of the 737-800, built for the Navy to hunt submarines and surface ships and replace the older P-3C Orion. Both the Poseidon and the C-40A, the Navy’s own 737-based transport aircraft, fly on variants of the CFM56-7B, the same engine family that powers commercial 737 Next Generation jets. CFM International, a joint venture between GE Aerospace and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines, is the sole producer of that engine, which is why the Navy did not compete this contract.

The Foreign Military Sales side of the deal reflects how far the P-8 program has spread beyond the U.S. Navy. Australia, the United Kingdom, India, Norway, South Korea and New Zealand already fly the Poseidon, and Canada signed on in 2023 for up to 16 aircraft under its Canadian Multi-Mission Aircraft project, with first delivery expected this year. More than 160 P-8s have been delivered worldwide, according to Boeing, logging over 560,000 combined flight hours.

Work under the new contract will be split across three sites: 53 percent at Safran’s Villaroche plant in France, 43 percent at a GE Aerospace facility in Durham, North Carolina, and 4 percent at GE’s Peebles, Ohio, test facility. The Navy has not said how the 24 engine cores will be divided among individual Foreign Military Sales customers, or which countries’ aircraft the orders will support first. Those details, along with the pace of individual task orders, will be determined as the contract runs through 2031.