During a special ceremony in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Wednesday, Air Arabia and CFM International celebrated the achievement of one million engine flight hours with the airline’s fleet of CFM56-5B engines.

Air Arabia has been a CFM customer since it began scheduled service in 2003.

Today, the airline operates a fleet of 32 CFM56-5B-powered Airbus A320 family aircraft.   All of these engines are covered by long-term service agreements with CFM, with part of the fleet covered by a time and material agreement; the aircraft delivered since 2010 are covered by a Rate per Flight Hour agreement, wherein CFM will guarantee engine maintenance costs on a dollar per engine flight hour basis.

“The success of Air Arabia’s relationship with CFM International is evidenced by our 10 year partnership, said Mr.  Adel Abdullah Ali, Air Arabia’s Chief Executive Officer.

“Air Arabia enjoys a long track record of operational excellence and we remain focused on offering the best value to our customers combined with excellent operational performance. This means a world track record in utilization of our resources, including the Airbus A320 aircraft powered by the state-of the art CFM56 engines,” he added.

In addition to achieving the one million flight hour milestone, the Air Arabia CFM56-5B engines have also been awarded TRUEngine status.

“We are pleased to celebrate these two tremendous milestones with Air Arabia, and the entire CFM Team extends its warmest congratulations,” said Jean-Paul Ebanga, President & CEO of CFM International.

“We believe that we build the most reliable engines in the air, but we know it is the maintenance crews at our airline customers that keep them flying.  The Air Arabia team has done an outstanding job maintaining these engines.  The fleet has maintained a 99.98 percent departure reliability rate and has had no unplanned engine removals and no in-flight shutdowns.  These statistics rank among the very best in the industry.  We consider it an honor to be part of this team,” Ebanga added.

Listed on the Dubai Financial Market, Air Arabia is the Middle East and North Africa's leading low-cost carrier. Air Arabia commenced operations in October 2003 and currently serves 85 routes from three hubs in the UAE, Morocco and Egypt.

Air Arabia carried a record 32 million passengers since its launch and more than 1.4 million in the first quarter of 2013.