Safran Aircraft Engines

Timeline

1945: Snecma was formed when the French aircraft engine manufacturer Gnome & Rhône was nationalised. The name 'Snecma' was an acronym for Société nationale d'études et de construction de moteurs d'aviation (in English: 'National Company for the Research and Construction of Aviation Engines').

1946: Initial employees were German engineers, primarily from BMW, located in Decize, France. Group was known as Groupe "O" until 1950. First design product was the ATAR engine.

1946 or 1947, the nationalized Établissments Regnier Motor Company was absorbed into Snecma and continued to produce the SNECMA Régnier 4L.

1961: Snecma and Bristol Siddeley formed a joint venture to produce a high-performance jet engine for the Concorde. The main body of the engine came from the Bristol Olympus, which was further improved with several refinements including the addition of the variable intakes necessary for supersonic flight.

1968: Snecma acquired Hispano-Suiza, Socata and Bugatti.

1970: Messier and Snecma agreed to merge their landing gear business. The following year, Messier-Hispano was formed, which was fully acquired by Snecma in 1973. Snecma's landing gear business was further consolidated by the creation of Messier-Hispano-Bugatti (later renamed Messier-Bugatti) in 1977.

1974: Snecma and General Electric (GE) created a joint venture named CFM International, beginning a long term cooperation to produce the CFM56 series of turbofan engines.

1990: Snecma announced its partnership with General Electric to build and produce the General Electric GE90 engine.

1994: Messier-Dowty was formed following the merger of the landing gear businesses of Snecma (Messier) and the British TI Group (Dowty).

Major programmes

In terms of volume, the most impactful commercial aero engine produced by Safran Aircraft Engines is the CFM International CFM56 turbofan powerplant. This engine is both developed and manufactured via a 50-50 joint venture company, CFM International, which Safran jointly owns with the American industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE). Established during the 1970s, the CFM56 was not an early success; by April 1979, the joint venture had not received a single order in five years and was allegedly two weeks away from being dissolved. The program was saved when Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Flying Tigers chose the CFM56 to re-engine their DC-8s; shortly thereafter, it was also selected to re-engine the KC-135 Stratotanker fleet of the United States Air Force, this operator being the engine's biggest customer. Following this turn of fortune, tens of thousands of engines have since been produced over the decades. A total of 30,000 CFM56s have been completed by July 2016.

Safran Aircraft Engines is also the main partner for several other engines coproduced with GE, including the CF6-80 and GE90. Safran Aircraft Engines is also involved in the Engine Alliance, which manufactures the GP7000 high-thrust turbofan engine, one of the only two powerplants certified to power the twin-decker Airbus A380. During the 2010s, Safran started manufacturing its portion of the LEAP engine via the CFM International joint venture; Safran and GE each assemble half of the annual volume. To cope with high demand for the LEAP engine, CFM has duplicated supply sources for 80% of parts and as well as subdivided assembly sites.

Safran Aircraft Engines is also involved in PowerJet, a joint venture business with Russian aero engine specialist NPO Saturn; this company produces SaM146 turbofan engine, which is used to power the Sukhoi Superjet 100 regional jet. During 2005, a new production plant was founded in Rybinsk, VolgAero, to manufacture components of the SaM146; additionally, parts and assemblies of other engines produced by PowerJet's two parent companies are also produced on this site.

In terms of military engines, Safran Aircraft Engines produces the Snecma M88 turbofan. This engine was developed to power the Dassault Rafale fighter aircraft. It fulfills numerous stringent performance criteria, including a high thrust-to-weight ratio, low fuel consumption across all flight regimes, and a long engine life. Additional considerations were afforded to both the M88's maintainability and upgrade potential (73 kN to 105 kN using the same core). Qualification of the M88-2 engine was completed during 1996 while the first production engine was delivered by the end of that year. It is of a modular design for ease of construction and maintenance, as well as to enable older engines to be retrofitted with improved subsections upon availability, such as existing M88-2s being upgraded to M88-4E standard. In May 2010, a Rafale flew for the first time with the M88-4E engine, an upgraded variant with greater thrust and lower maintenance requirements than the preceding M88-2.

Products

Aircraft

SNECMA Coleoptere

Military engines

SNECMA Atar

SNECMA M53

SNECMA M88

SNECMA Turbomeca Larzac

EuroProp TP400-D6 (as part of Europrop International)

5,000 shp turboprop 70-90 seater regional airliners (under study)

Space engines

Viking

HM7B

PPS-1350

PPS-5000

Vinci

Vulcain

Sites

Châtellerault

Courcouronnes: Headquarters

Évry-Corbeil

Le Creusot

Gennevilliers

Guiana Space Centre

Istres

Melun Villaroche Aerodrome, located at Montereau-sur-le-Jard

Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

Vernon

GMR Aerospace and Industrial Park – SEZ, Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, Hyderabad, India

Hosts a 45,000 m2 (11 acres) MRO facility of Safran Aircraft Engine Services India for LEAP series engines. The facility, worth ₹1,300 crore (US$130 million), can service up to 300 engines annually with a workforce of 1,000 technicians. The facility was inaugurated in 2025 with plans to operationalise it by 2026 and full capacity by 2035.

Another facility to service M88 engines is being constructed as of November 2025.