Chinese Aviation Industry

I think what everyone has said is overall...true. So far, the C919 is not selling well. 165 orders pales in comparison to the A320neo, 737max..etc. Not to mention, many of those orders are options and virtually all from China's state controlled airlines who are being pressured to buy chinese.

That said, personally, i do not think the C919 will be a "bad" plane. The reason it isn't getting the orders is the uncertainty. The ARJ-21 is over 5 years behind schedule, yet that project is not nearly as complex as C919. Airlines don't want to order the first Chinese jet, a jet that may not be delivered until 2020. They want something from a company with a proven track record, Boeing or Airbus.

The thing is, China is in this for the long term. The C919 may not make a dime of profits, but the C929 will. It will take China a long time to pose a serious threat to the airbus/boeing duopoly.

Not really. Cause this will be China first decent sized airliner. Boeing and Airbus have had years, so customers know they are proven from years of service. AVIC has just came up with their first one. Would you buy a new brand car or a car brand that has been making cars for years? Customers need to see what benefits it offers, how it performs, and its service history.

Pointblank said:

Then why haven't the big Chinese airlines (Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, Hainan, etc) only place very small firm orders with Comac, and have decided to instead buy hundreds of Airbus, Boeing, and Bombardier aircraft over the local product, and continue to do so, despite government arm twisting to buy the local product?

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Who places massive orders from a new firm for their first product? It would be stupid for companies to place massive orders when there are so many unknowns.

The major Chinese airlines will buy some C919s to trial them, and if they are up to scratch, then they will place the big orders. It's just plain common sense. To read any more into it is illogical and whiffs of a point looking for facts to support it.

Pointblank said:

Then why haven't the big Chinese airlines (Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, Hainan, etc) only place very small firm orders with Comac, and have decided to instead buy hundreds of Airbus, Boeing, and Bombardier aircraft over the local product, and continue to do so, despite government arm twisting to buy the local product?

When 60% of your order book is for options, not firm purchases, it doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence. And even the firm orders are highly suspect; most apparently aren't even binding orders...

And that's for an aircraft that independent observers have noted appears to be overweight, with figures being presented as being highly suspect...

I will point out BA will never buy the Comac aircraft. He's using the Comac C919 as a bargaining tool for his negotiations with Airbus and Boeing for new aircraft. No one in the industry is taking Comac very seriously.

With both Boeing and Airbus having refreshed versions of the 737 and A320 out before the C919, the C919 will get squeezed out of the market. With the major delays in certification on the ARJ-21, they will have pull resources from development on the C919 to fix the major technical design flaws (a wing that failed structural load tests and thus require redesign and retesting, and issues with the flight control system) in the ARJ-21 and the ARJ-21 still not having passed two critical certification tests (icing and stall tests), and still have yet to sign off the aircraft to the CAAC for their own certification tests, meaning most likely a heavily delayed EIS.

It is more likely that the Irkut MS-21 will be far more successful than the C919, and the current order book reflect that; the MS-21 has 200 FIRM orders, not options.

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China has the money and the market for it. No matter what your opinion is,C919 will succeed. End of the day, CCP will ask all local airliner to buy C919. We have the money and we have the will. C919 is a national project and goal. CCP will never let it fail. Russian one will bound to fail, first it can't compete with Boeing and airbus and it doesn't has a huge domestic market. China will force local companies to take it. They have the money and they can stomach the loss even the plane may prove not as efficient as Boeing or airbus one.

Just like WS-10 military engine. National project and will never fail. All J-11B are now equipped with domestic engine and J-10B will soon equip it for operation. It will never fail.

Pointblank said:

Then why haven't the big Chinese airlines (Air China, China Southern, China Eastern, Hainan, etc) only place very small firm orders with Comac, and have decided to instead buy hundreds of Airbus, Boeing, and Bombardier aircraft over the local product, and continue to do so, despite government arm twisting to buy the local product?

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A newcomer like Comac will need time to build up its manufacturing capacity and support network so it's natural big airlines will not place big orders at first.
Large orders are useless if you can't deliver like the 787 nightmare. Boeing gave big discounts to get large 787 orders to make nice marketing statements but it has now come back to haunt it as cancellations, compensation claims for missed schedule & performances continue to today with no signs of profitability in sight.
As for tight resources, Boeing is actually in the worst situation with its problems with 787 and 747-8. It was the most reluctant to move the 737 Max to before 2020 but after C919 forced Airbus to introduce A320Neo to 2016, Boeing had no choice.
But the response to 737Max has been very poor due to poor design that they don't have customers for it yet.

Second C919 order this week.



Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China won an order for 20 C919 aircraft from Sichuan Airlines, its second contract for the plane this week.

The deal increases the backlog for the single-aisle plane to 165, Shanghai-based Comac said in an e-mailed statement today. The planemaker announced an order for 45 C919s from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.’s leasing arm on Oct. 19.

The agreements end an almost yearlong order drought for state-backed Comac, which is trying to compete with Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS’s bestselling models. China will need as many as 5,000 new aircraft through 2030, of which 71 percent will be narrow-body planes, Boeing said last month.

Existing customers for C919 include General Electric Co.’s leasing arm and China’s three major airlines, Air China Ltd., China Southern Airlines Co. and China Eastern Airlines Corp. Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest discount airline, said in June that it’s exploring a requirement for at least 200 single- aisle jets with Comac.

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Schumacher said:

Second C919 order this week.

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Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China won an order for 20 C919 aircraft from Sichuan Airlines, its second contract for the plane this week.

The deal increases the backlog for the single-aisle plane to 165, Shanghai-based Comac said in an e-mailed statement today. The planemaker announced an order for 45 C919s from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.’s leasing arm on Oct. 19.

The agreements end an almost yearlong order drought for state-backed Comac, which is trying to compete with Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS’s bestselling models. China will need as many as 5,000 new aircraft through 2030, of which 71 percent will be narrow-body planes, Boeing said last month.

Existing customers for C919 include General Electric Co.’s leasing arm and China’s three major airlines, Air China Ltd., China Southern Airlines Co. and China Eastern Airlines Corp. Ryanair Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest discount airline, said in June that it’s exploring a requirement for at least 200 single- aisle jets with Comac.

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I was going to say that I had already included these 20 planes in my count of 165.

But then I realized that this order is from Sichuan. The order I was refererring to, with the China Aircraft Leasing company, I suppose, is not official yet.

So THIS order bring the total to 165, but it appears there is another order for 20 more in the works. So the total may reach 185 by the end of the year.

Again, I wonder how many are options?

from the first 100, 45 were options. Each of the top 3 airlines ordered 5 firm and 15 options. At some point, those will be firmed up or they will sell the 5 top someone else, because you are not going to operate a fleet of 5 aircraft of one type. That would be a logistical problem. I'm assuming that these orders from ICBC and Sichuan are all firm, since they did not state otherwise.

This aircraft will get some good orders even if it's not up to the specs, because domestic airlines will be under pressure to at least buy small amount of it. Outside of that, all of the countries that can't buy boeing/airbus airliners that have been buying Tupolev aircraft will choose between this and MS-21. I'd think C-919 would take away a good number of that order due to political considerations and generous loans. I think COMAC is going this the right way. It's trying to establish as many partnership as possible. Although, it's hard to say how many of these partnerships will bear fruit.

As for C-919 vs MS-21, most of major Russian airliners have already placed huge orders on MS-21. That's how it got to 200 orders. The Chinese market has potential to put in much larger orders. So, I would not use the current order total to determine future success. Give both aircraft another 3 to 4 years and oversea markets would see where they are at and decided if they are worth buying. Remember, Airbus and Boeing have already entered the picture with new engine options, so C-919/MS-21 have lost out the fuel efficiency advantage that they originally claimed. What C-919 does have is production slots and lower pricing and generous loans.

We will see, even if Ryan Air and BA never place any orders on C-919 (which is likely), it will be good for COMAC to go through this process with them to gain experience over what these airliners expect. ARJ-21 was clearly developed just for the Chinese market, but C-919 is supposedly developed for the world market, so it has much higher requirement.

Looking back now, COMAC probably made quite a few mistakes originally in its development process for ARJ-21 which is causing all of the delays now. That's nothing new for a kid in the block developing its first airliner. MRJ has the same problem.

Also, don't worry about ARJ-21 sales figures. As soon as it joins service and perform, it will be able to get more orders. COMAC will be able to get orders from Asian, South American and African countries. These countries have already been purchasing MA-60 due to political considerations and cheap loans, so ARJ-21 will be able to follow the same path once it joins service and have open production slots.

international partnership is good for China but also has a downside, for example Iran needs atleast 6-7 new aircraft every year and really need to bag a big order for a aircraft, they are only allowed 8+years old aircraft from 2nd hand airlines, Boeing and Airbus are not allowed to sell to Iran because of sanctions

but C919 and ARJ21 has US parts and this may cause problems for Iran, Iran needs aircraft free of US strings and that only means Russia, if C919 and ARJ21 are fully 100% Chinese Iran would order many dozens of them as would Cuba who also need new aircraft but certainly Iranian market would bump up the order books massively

asif iqbal said:

international partnership is good for China but also has a downside, for example Iran needs atleast 6-7 new aircraft every year and really need to bag a big order for a aircraft, they are only allowed 8+years old aircraft from 2nd hand airlines, Boeing and Airbus are not allowed to sell to Iran because of sanctions
but C919 and ARJ21 has US parts and this may cause problems for Iran, Iran needs aircraft free of US strings and that only means Russia, if C919 and ARJ21 are fully 100% Chinese Iran would order many dozens of them as would Cuba who also need new aircraft but certainly Iranian market would bump up the order books massively

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For the engines at least, China has the CJ1000 designed to be comparable with the next gen of western ones planned by 2020. That's not too far away given aircraft ordering and life cycle.
Another thing is given current trends, in say 5 years later, western nations may not be in a very strong position to impose sanctions on China even if China forcefully export some C919 to Iran or Cuba etc. They can easily find some face-saving ways to get around it like having some 'human rights' groups write some reports saying the situation is getting better so some exports are fine.