China Eastern Selects LEAP-1A Engines for 101 A320neo-Family Jets
CFM said on 6 November 2026 that China Eastern selected LEAP-1A engines, spares and a services agreement for 101 A320neo-family aircraft. The airframe purchase agreement was announced on 25 March 2026.
Organizational byline
Updated November 9, 2026
4 min read
China Eastern's engine choice for a batch of Airbus narrowbodies is the news of 6 November 2026. The airframe purchase is not. On that date CFM International said the airline had selected LEAP-1A engines to power 101 new Airbus A320neo-family aircraft, together with spare engines and a long-term services agreement. CFM said the companies marked the contract at the 9th China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
The photograph is China Eastern Airbus A320-251N B-308A taxiing at Kuala Lumpur on 23 February 2025, on what the photographer records as the first MU873 from Kunming. An A320-251N is an A320neo with LEAP-1A engines. B-308A is an aircraft already in service. It is not one of the 101 aircraft in the November selection, which have not been delivered.
The November announcement is the engine contract
CFM says the aircraft in the new fleet will include the A320neo, the A321neo and the A321XLR. It does not give a count for each model. It says China Eastern already has 215 A320neo and A321neo aircraft with LEAP-1A engines, plus Boeing 737 MAX aircraft powered by the LEAP-1B and COMAC C919 aircraft powered by the LEAP-1C, and that the airline operates more than 380 aircraft powered by CFM56 engines, including A320ceo and 737NG families. Those fleet figures are CFM's.
Xiaoqun He, China Eastern's executive vice president, is quoted by CFM on reliability, fuel efficiency and support. Weiming Xiang, president of CFM Greater China, is quoted on a relationship CFM dates to 1985 and a CFM56-3C-powered 737-300 for China Eastern Yunnan. CFM also says that in the ten years since the LEAP entered service it has delivered more than 10,000 engines and accumulated more than 100 million flight hours, and that it continues to fit a high-pressure-turbine durability kit and a reverse-bleed system. Those durability, shop-burden and flight-hour statements are the manufacturer's. This article does not treat them as an independent maintenance audit.
CFM does not state an engine count, a spare-engine count or a dollar value for the November agreement.
The 101 airframes were announced in March
China Eastern's own Hong Kong exchange announcement, dated 25 March 2026, says the company signed an aircraft purchase agreement with Airbus SAS in Shanghai that day for 101 A320neo-series aircraft. Deliveries were scheduled from 2028 to 2032: 9 in 2028, 19 in 2029, 30 in 2030, 27 in 2031 and 16 in 2032. The company said it could later adjust introduction timing and the aircraft model. It expected at least 53 A320-series aircraft to leave the fleet over the same years because of lease maturity and age, and described the 101 as partly a replacement.
The announcement gives a catalogue price of about USD 15.802 billion, using Airbus catalogue prices provided in January 2024, and says Airbus granted concessions the airline did not disclose. The catalogue figure is not the price paid. The announcement says that catalogue total includes airframe price, engine price and other items. It describes the aircraft as Airbus's latest narrowbodies, equipped with new engines and Sharklets. It does not name CFM, LEAP-1A or any other engine supplier.
At the date of that announcement the purchase was a major transaction under the Hong Kong listing rules and still required shareholder approval, as well as a circular the company then expected to send by 14 May 2026. This article does not report the outcome of that vote. What CFM announced on 6 November is the engine and services selection for 101 A320neo-family aircraft, not a new agreement to buy the airframes from Airbus.
