CHICAGO — Boeing says it will move ahead with a new engine for its 737, matching a competing Airbus plane and giving its best-selling jet the fuel efficiency that airlines crave.
Airlines have been struggling with sharply higher fuel costs, so every improvement in fuel efficiency helps their bottom lines.
“Our customers have told us that they want efficiency, and they want it soon, and they want it with certainty, and that’s what this airplane will do,” said Jim Albaugh, the Boeing executive vice president who runs its commercial airplane division.
Boeing makes more 737s than any other plane, with more than 2,100 on order. It competes head-to-head with the Airbus A320, which will have a new, more fuel-efficient engine available starting in 2015. Boeing said its 737 with the new engine will be available in 2017.
Boeing said five airlines have committed to buy 496 of the planes. Airbus has booked more than 1,000 orders for its new-engine version of the A320.
Boeing is calling the 737 with the new engine the “Max,” as in maximum. It says the plane will be as much as 12 percent more fuel-efficient than its current 737 and 4 percent more efficient per seat than the Airbus A320neo.
Albaugh said most of the fuel improvements come from the new engine. The original 737 first flew in 1967. Its design has been tweaked since then, but Albaugh said Boeing would make minimal changes to it besides the new engine.
“We’re going to make this the simplest re-engine possible,” he said.
Boeing’s decision has been expected since last month, when American Airlines said it would buy 100 of the new-engine 737s if Boeing builds them. American has said it does not expect to get the new-engine 737 until 2018, a year after Boeing expects to begin deliveries.
