Friday Aviation News Roundup: New 747-8 Engines Ready, First 737MAX 9 Delivered, American Airlines to phase out older 737's

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First up, GE announces that it's first engine upgrade for the 747-8 is ready, called the GEnx-2B

The upgrade involves improvements to four areas in the core of the engine, including the fuel nozzles and the second generation of the twin-annular, pre-swirl (TAPS II) combustor, the company says.

The durability upgrades also target the first stage of the high-pressure turbine, with improvements to the blades and the nozzles of the dual-rotor engine.

“The improvements will increase time on wing for the engine,” GE says.

Full article:https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ge-completes-tests-on-genx-2b-upgrades-for-747-8-446969/

Next up: Boeing has delivered the first commercial 737 MAX 9 into service.

With this delivery, The Lion Air Group becomes the launch customer of the 737 MAX 9 after the MAX 8 that entered into service at Lion Air last year in July.

The Jakarta-based group, which launched its operations in June 2000 with a Boeing 737-200, has today 200, 737 MAX on order making it one of the major customers of the MAX family.

This delivery is an opportunity for Boeing to highlight the complementary of the different versions of the 737 MAX.

"Lion Air Group is the perfect example of how the 737 MAX family provides a common fleet solution for single-aisle aircraft," said Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Kevin McAllister in a statement.

Full article: https://airlinerwatch.com/boeing-delivers-the-first-737-max-9-to-lion-air-group/

And finally: American Airlines has announced its plans to phase out all older 737 models by 2020.

American Airlines has announced plans to retire a total of 45 of its jets over the course of the next two years. The move will drastically reduce the average age of the airline's narrow-body fleet.

American Airlines has announced that it will be withdrawing a total of 12 of the planes from its existing fleet in 2019. The next batch of 33 will be retired at some point in 2020. However, American won't be pulling the plug on the fleet all at once. Either it follows gradual withdrawal of planes in the manner illustrated above or it will retire three planes every month. This will give the airline time to transition to its newer planes without dealing with an aircraft shortage that could disrupt operations. In fact, customers of the airline shouldn't expect to experience any disruptions or route changes as a result of the fleet swap.

Full story:https://news.get.com/american-airlines-will-retire-boeing-737-aircraft-2020/

Edited March 23, 2018 by cleonpack93