LE BOURGET, France—As Airbus Group SE and Boeing Co. explore
whether to boost output of their most popular single-aisle
jetliners, key suppliers are starting to urge the two plane makers
to move cautiously, with demand already stretching production
capacity.
"There are restrictions to how fast we can ramp up," said Franç
ois Bastin, executive vice president at CFM International, a joint
venture between General Electric Co. and Safran SA, ahead of the
coming week's Paris International Air Show.
Airbus and Boeing have enjoyed huge demand for single-aisle
planes, which form the backbone of global airline operations. Both
plane makers are bullish about their long-term prospects, giving
them incentive to build more planes, despite indications that new
order bookings at this year's trade fair may fall short of previous
highs.
Airbus on Monday is set to lift its 20-year forecast for new jet
deliveries to around 32,600 from 31,358, Fabrice Bré gier,
president of the company's jetliner business, said on the eve of
the show. Boeing last week raised its 20-year outlook by around
1,000 jet deliveries to 38,000 planes, valued at $5.6 trillion.
Boeing's forecast includes some smaller planes not counted by
Airbus.
Surging appetite from carriers for more fuel-efficient jetliners
put Boeing on course to increase production to 47 planes a month in
2017 from 42 currently, and Airbus is advancing to 50. Boeing will
boost the number to 52 in 2018, and both have indicated output may
rise again by the end of the decade to 60 or more single-aisle
jets.
"Airlines need more aircraft," Mr. Bré gier said, a sentiment
echoed by top Boeing executives.
Airbus will this year introduce the A320neo, an updated model of
its popular narrow-body plane, with more efficient engines produced
by United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney unit. Next year,
it will deliver a version of the plane equipped with CFM's improved
turbine. Boeing's 737 Max jetliner is due to enter service powered
entirely by the Franco-American joint venture's engines in
2017.
CFM, which delivered its first Leap-1A engines to Airbus this
year, plans to boost output to more than 1,800 engines around 2020.
But ramping up production even more aggressively would be a
challenge, Mr. Bastin said. "We have stretched ourselves as fast as
we can go," he said.
CFM has amassed orders for more than 8,900 engines across the
Airbus and Boeing models, as well as China's Comac C919. When it
hits its planned manufacturing tempo, the joint venture aims to
build a new Leap engine at a rate of one every five hours.
Greg Gernhardt, president of commercial engines at Pratt, said,
"We have a daunting ramp up in front of us." The company is
juggling five different new airplane programs, including Airbus's
A320neo.
Mr. Gernhardt expects to add to the challenge this week by
adding orders for more than 500 engines in deals set to be
announced. Pratt will deliver around 800 large commercial engines
this year and up to 2,000 by 2020.
The pace at which Airbus and Boeing are trying to deliver planes
leaves little margin for missteps. Mr. Gernhardt said Pratt has
made sure no single component or supplier can knock its operations
off course, with redundancy so production isn't disrupted even in
case of natural disaster or similar issues.
Still, surprises can occur. When a component problem with a
Pratt engine on the A320neo idled the two test aircraft, Airbus
quickly assigned some of the flight trials to another aircraft
featuring a competitor's turbine.
Mr. Gernhardt said Pratt has moved rapidly to identify the
flaw—a component that holds a seal inside the engine wasn't
manufactured properly, causing it to fail at high temperature—and
will dispatch fixed turbines to Airbus by the end of the month. Key
ground trials will also resume this week, he said.
Mr. Bré gier said he expects to deliver the first of the
aircraft to Qatar Airways by the end of the year, as promised.
Write to Robert Wall at robert.wall@wsj.com and Jon Ostrower at
jon.ostrower@wsj.com
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