Airshow order announcements are usually about aeroplanes. One of the largest deals of Farnborough's opening day involved no aircraft at all.
BOC Aviation, the Singapore-based lessor, signed for as many as 300 CFM LEAP engines — up to 200 LEAP-1A and 100 LEAP-1B. The company calls it its largest engine transaction ever.
What it actually represents is a decision about which engines will hang under aircraft the lessor has already ordered, and that decision is worth more to the manufacturers than most aircraft orders are.
Quick Facts
| Announced | 20 July 2026, opening day of the Farnborough International Airshow |
| The deal | A firm order for up to 300 CFM LEAP engines: up to 200 LEAP-1A and 100 LEAP-1B |
| What they power | LEAP-1A on the Airbus A320neo family; LEAP-1B is the sole engine offered on the Boeing 737 MAX |
| Important nuance | The engines are for aircraft BOC Aviation had already ordered. This is an engine selection, not an aircraft order |
| The lessor | 811 aircraft and engines owned, managed and on order, leased to 88 airlines in 45 countries as of 30 June 2026 |
| CFM | A 50/50 joint venture between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines, founded in 1974 |
| Scale | More than 10,000 LEAP engines delivered to date |
| History | CFM engines have powered part of BOC Aviation’s fleet since 1998. LEAP engines are on more than 240 of its aircraft today |
Half a competition, half a formality
The two halves of this order are not equivalent, and the distinction is the most interesting thing about it.
The 100 LEAP-1Bs are not a competitive win. The 737 MAX is offered with one engine and one engine only, and that engine is the LEAP-1B. Order the aircraft, get the engine. There is no alternative to choose.
The 200 LEAP-1As are a different matter. On the A320neo family, Airbus offers a genuine choice between the LEAP-1A and Pratt & Whitney's geared turbofan, and the two have been fighting over that market for a decade. Two hundred engines is a real defeat for Pratt & Whitney on a lessor's fleet — and lessors matter disproportionately, because their choices propagate to dozens of airlines that lease rather than buy.
Two hundred and one hundred engines works out to roughly 150 twin-engine aircraft plus spares, though neither CFM nor BOC has published the split.
The durability problem in the background
There is a reason engine reliability featured so heavily in the announcement. The LEAP has had a difficult few years in service, particularly on high-cycle short-haul operations in hot and dusty environments, where high-pressure turbine components have worn faster than anyone wanted.
CFM has been working the problem with a high-pressure turbine durability kit and a reverse bleed system designed to reduce heat soak after shutdown. The LEAP-1B durability kit was certified on 18 July, two days before this order was announced.
For a lessor, that timing is not incidental. Engine time on wing determines maintenance cost, which determines residual value, which is the entire business model of aircraft leasing. A lessor ordering 300 engines is making a bet on how long they will stay on the wing.
Not even the biggest engine deal of the day
For all the superlatives, BOC's order was not the largest engine announcement at Farnborough on Monday. IndiGo and CFM signed a memorandum of understanding covering more than 1,000 LEAP-1A engines the same day — an airline order rather than a lessor one, and several times the size.
BOC's remains the largest of its kind from a leasing company, which is its own category and its own kind of endorsement. Lessors do not fly aeroplanes. They own them, and they have to sell them again in fifteen years.
Choosing an engine, for them, is a statement about what will still be worth something in 2041.
A LEAP-1B at full thrust on a 737 MAX 9 departure — the variant that makes up a third of BOC’s order.
Sources: Safran, CFM International, FlightGlobal, AviTrader, MRO Business Today.
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