Riyadh Air signs deal for 90 GEnx engines to power future Boeing 787 Dreamliner Fleet

Following its recent agreement for a wide-body order of 39 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft, Riyadh Air has signed a deal for 90 GEnx-1B engines to power its new fleet. The order also includes spare engines and a TrueChoice services agreement.

The agreement was signed at the Paris Air Show at the Riyadh Air chalet, where the airline revealed its new livery to the world following a flyby last week over Riyadh's iconic city skyline. 

Tony Douglas, Chief Executive Officer of Riyadh Air said, "The agreement highlights our determination to significantly extend Saudi Arabia's connectivity with the world and fulfil our goal of connecting to 100 destinations by 2030. We look forward to fostering strong strategic relationships within the wider aviation ecosystem as we continue to shape our new digitally native airline to become one of the most sustainable and guest- centric carriers in the world."

Russell Stokes, President & CEO, of Commercial Engines and Services for GE Aerospace said, "We are proud to partner with Riyadh Air to support its new fleet and fulfil its vision for long international routes. GE Aerospace's GEnx engine is a perfect fit for the 787 fleet with its combination of power and the ability to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions."

Riyadh Air was unveiled to the world in March, and this marks the first engine partnership with GE Aerospace for its new fleet of Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners. The first deliveries are scheduled for early 2025 as Riyadh Air aims to operate one of the newest and most sustainable airline fleets in the world.

GE Aerospace runs one of the world's largest supercomputer simulations to test revolutionary new open fan engine architecture

GE Aerospace is first business to use the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Frontier supercomputer, the world's fastest supercomputer

Frontier can process billions upon billions of operations per second

GE-developed models being used to study performance of open fan engine architecture for next-generation commercial aircraft engines

These models developed in partnership with ORNL could help reduce CO2 emissions by more than 20%

To support the development of a revolutionary new open fan engine architecture for the future of flight, GE Aerospace has run simulations using the world's fastest supercomputer capable of crunching data in excess of exascale speed, or more than a quintillion calculations per second.

To model engine performance and noise levels, GE Aerospace created software capable of operating on Frontier, a recently commissioned supercomputer at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory with processing power of about 37,000 GPUs. For comparison, Frontier's processing speed is so powerful, it would take every person on Earth combined more than four years to do what the supercomputer can in one second.

By coupling GE Aerospace's computational fluid dynamics software with Frontier, GE was able to simulate air movement of a full-scale open fan design with incredible detail. 

"Developing game-changing new aircraft engines requires game-changing technical capabilities. With supercomputing, GE Aerospace engineers are redefining the future of flight and solving problems that would have previously been impossible," said Mohamed Ali, vice president and general manager of engineering for GE Aerospace. 

"Together with the U.S. Department of Energy and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we are showing supercomputing to be a revolutionary tool for designing aircraft engines for a once-in-a-generation step change in improved fuel efficiency — critical for helping the aviation industry toward its target of net zero CO2 emissions by 2050," Ali said. 

GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines unveiled in 2021 the CFM RISE* (Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines) program, which includes development of advanced new engine architectures such as the open fan, along with advanced thermal management, combustion, and hybrid electric capabilities. The goal of the RISE Program is to develop technologies that enable a future engine to achieve at least 20% lower fuel consumption and 20% fewer CO2 emissions compared to today's most efficient engines.