The success of the new CFM International LEAP jet engine is contributing to solid success for Albany Engineered Composites (AEC), which saw its sales climb in the second financial quarter of 2016 to $54.2 million, compared to $27 million in the first three months of 2016. Sales continued at this high level for the remainder of 2016 and were $54.4 million in the first quarter of 2017.

And this was even prior to CFM – the joint venture between GE and Safran Engines which makes the LEAP engines – logging record orders at the June 2017 Paris Air Show.

CFM received orders for 1,658 LEAP and CFM56 engines, in addition to long-term service agreements, with a value of more than $27.3 billion.

Total LEAP orders now on CFM’s books are for more than 14,000 engines.

AEC is the sole-source provider of 3D woven RTM composite fan blades and fan cases for the LEAP engine, supplied from its plants in Rochester, New Hampshire, Salt Lake, Utah, and Commercy in France, and also from this year, at a new plant in Queretaro, Mexico.

“AEC came of age in 2016,” said CEO Joseph G. Morone in the company’s 2016 annual report. “Sales nearly doubled to $200 million, and earnings swung from a loss to $16 million. Progress was notably due to the fan blades and cases for LEAP, for the LiftFan and airframe of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and for fuselage frames for the Boeing 787. The production of these will accelerate in 2017 and again in 2018, and so will the intensity of the requirement to continuously improve safety, quality, delivery and cost.”