70 to 90 seats vs 150 setas.
Chinese Aviation Industry
- Thread starter FriedRiceNSpice
- Start date
70 to 90 seats vs 150 setas.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
SuperJet SSJ 100/95LR is the biggest I can think of seats 108 passengers. there is a projected 145 seater the Superjet130
Boeing 737 series maxes out at 737-900 with 215 seats.
Airbus 318 seats 132
Those are roughly comparable in class. The Chinese in my opinion made there choice based on the Cost and fact that they are in essence getting in on the ground floor and would have a lot more control over the end product including potential sales abroad.
Boeing 737 series maxes out at 737-900 with 215 seats.
Airbus 318 seats 132
Those are roughly comparable in class. The Chinese in my opinion made there choice based on the Cost and fact that they are in essence getting in on the ground floor and would have a lot more control over the end product including potential sales abroad.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
I'm sure the Russians want to get into the lucrative international passenger airline business. Given the bad reputation that precedes them in that line of business, they need to get a buyer in order to start leaving that reputation behind. Since China is the largest growing market for passenger airliners, what more better a place to where they can show it off. There was probably some outside deal to get that to happen.
O-bay is not an airliner, it seems to be a general aviation that does parts, repair and makes crop dusters. They seems to be privately founded and it appears the Sukhoi deal hinged on O-bay doing assembly, thus propels them into the big leagues. I doubt they would get the same deal from either Boeing or Airbus. The planes would be chartered to another company rents them to budget airlines. it would be nice to see healthy private competition to Comac in China, it's way too early to say this is death knell for the ARJ-21.
See news in Chinese
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AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Well I wasn't talking about China getting a deal from Boeing or Airbus. I was talking about a deal with Russia on something else that China wants and a part of that deal was China buying Sukhoi airliners.
Its way too early for it.
See my post nº 639. This is not a state company, but a private company. The chinese government didnt negociate anything with russia about this. But this deal still needs state government approval, and probably it wont get it.
Rand Report: Beijing's Flight of Fancy
What do $7 billion and a dream buy you in China? Not a passenger aircraft that will fly, apparently.
That conclusion comes from a new report from Rand Corporation on China's quest to develop an indigenous passenger jet to compete with Boeing. Beijing has poured $7 billion—at least—into developing the C919 single-aisle equivalent to a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320, and billions more into the smaller ARJ-21 regional jet. Both have been under development for years. Neither is expected to enter commercial service any time soon, although the regional jet at least has taken some test flights.
Beijing for decades has viewed the ability to produce a passenger jet as a key goal, not least for what it would signal about China's industrial capabilities. In the 1970s China produced a plane similar to the Boeing 707, but it quickly proved uneconomical for Chinese airlines to operate and the program ended in 1983. In the 1980s Beijing continued its jet push by encouraging foreign aircraft firms to manufacture in China so that Chinese managers and engineers would learn foreign techniques.
The most high-profile of these arrangements was a deal by McDonnell-Douglas to assemble single-aisle MD-82 and MD-83 jets in China. That ended when McDonnell-Douglas merged into Boeing and stopped producing the planes, but it appears to have been a particularly fruitful learning experience for China: The ARJ-21 regional jet bears a striking resemblance to the MD-82, although Beijing insists the Chinese plane is made using indigenous technologies.
Yet although Chinese workers have assembled MD-82/83s (including several that were exported to the U.S.) and more recently have produced Airbus aircraft and a wide range of aircraft components, Chinese engineers have yet to master the art of designing their own plane. The explanation will sound familiar to many China hands: Chinese companies still fall far short on softer skills.
The most important soft skill in the aircraft industry is the ability to coordinate the manufacture of thousands of components across a long and broad supply chain. This has proven difficult enough for Boeing and Airbus in the production of their newest, highest-tech planes with their most complex supply chains. In China, the Rand report suggests, it's baffling even for a plane based on 30-year-old technology. The parts simply don't fit together correctly when they arrive at the plant for final assembly.
Meanwhile, Rand raises some interesting questions about the downstream consequences of Beijing's jet program. Beijing's new ambitions for state-owned enterprise reform, and for promoting service industries ahead of heavy industry, bump up against its old-style industrial policy.
The most logical customers for a Chinese jet are China's state-owned airlines. But those airlines have balked at both Chinese jet programs, despite indications that they've been pressured by Beijing to buy them. The think tank quotes one source describing a conversation in which an airline executive referred to the regional jet as "that stupid airplane," and another executive questioning whether small regional jets have any use in China at all.
The air carriers are in many ways models of reformed SOEs. They're partially listed overseas, feature increasingly professional management, and are steadily improving their cost structures and customer service. And they're service companies. When Beijing says it wants SOE reform, this presumably is what it means.
In contrast, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), which is making both jets, is a politically favored, cheap-capital-enjoying monopolist—definitely an old-time SOE. Now the carriers risk being dragged back into the mire through coerced cooperation with an "unreformed" state-owned enterprise.
There are serious doubts about the fuel-efficiency of the new jets given the age of the Western technologies on which they're based. Ditto for maintenance costs and reliability. Carriers can't be sure whether passengers will want to buy tickets for flights operated by the planes—in the auto market, where consumers are given a choice, foreign-branded cars still dominate thanks to perceptions about quality and safety.
Any serious SOE reform would allow service-providing SOEs that already have made important internal improvements to try their hand at making decisions about which planes to buy on commercial grounds. To the extent the jet program's ultimate success requires that airlines be induced to play along, it will undermine reform.
This only compounds the damage inflicted on air carriers by Beijing's most successful transportation-related industrial policy: development of a high-speed rail network with supposedly indigenous technology. In that instance, state rail operators using state resources have laid thousands of kilometers of track on which run state-created high-speed trains to compete with the airlines. Carriers are unenthusiastic about an uneconomical indigenous jet in part because they'll face increased competition from high-speed rail.
Perhaps Beijing really does know what it's doing, and Comac will eventually become a viable global rival to Airbus and Boeing. Given enough time and money, Comac probably could manage to do so. But as the Rand report makes clear, such a goal is not cost-free for Beijing. Indeed, it may run counter to other important pro-growth measures Beijing has promised.
What do $7 billion and a dream buy you in China? Not a passenger aircraft that will fly, apparently.
That conclusion comes from a new report from Rand Corporation on China's quest to develop an indigenous passenger jet to compete with Boeing. Beijing has poured $7 billion—at least—into developing the C919 single-aisle equivalent to a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320, and billions more into the smaller ARJ-21 regional jet. Both have been under development for years. Neither is expected to enter commercial service any time soon, although the regional jet at least has taken some test flights.
Beijing for decades has viewed the ability to produce a passenger jet as a key goal, not least for what it would signal about China's industrial capabilities. In the 1970s China produced a plane similar to the Boeing 707, but it quickly proved uneconomical for Chinese airlines to operate and the program ended in 1983. In the 1980s Beijing continued its jet push by encouraging foreign aircraft firms to manufacture in China so that Chinese managers and engineers would learn foreign techniques.
The most high-profile of these arrangements was a deal by McDonnell-Douglas to assemble single-aisle MD-82 and MD-83 jets in China. That ended when McDonnell-Douglas merged into Boeing and stopped producing the planes, but it appears to have been a particularly fruitful learning experience for China: The ARJ-21 regional jet bears a striking resemblance to the MD-82, although Beijing insists the Chinese plane is made using indigenous technologies.
Yet although Chinese workers have assembled MD-82/83s (including several that were exported to the U.S.) and more recently have produced Airbus aircraft and a wide range of aircraft components, Chinese engineers have yet to master the art of designing their own plane. The explanation will sound familiar to many China hands: Chinese companies still fall far short on softer skills.
The most important soft skill in the aircraft industry is the ability to coordinate the manufacture of thousands of components across a long and broad supply chain. This has proven difficult enough for Boeing and Airbus in the production of their newest, highest-tech planes with their most complex supply chains. In China, the Rand report suggests, it's baffling even for a plane based on 30-year-old technology. The parts simply don't fit together correctly when they arrive at the plant for final assembly.
Meanwhile, Rand raises some interesting questions about the downstream consequences of Beijing's jet program. Beijing's new ambitions for state-owned enterprise reform, and for promoting service industries ahead of heavy industry, bump up against its old-style industrial policy.
The most logical customers for a Chinese jet are China's state-owned airlines. But those airlines have balked at both Chinese jet programs, despite indications that they've been pressured by Beijing to buy them. The think tank quotes one source describing a conversation in which an airline executive referred to the regional jet as "that stupid airplane," and another executive questioning whether small regional jets have any use in China at all.
The air carriers are in many ways models of reformed SOEs. They're partially listed overseas, feature increasingly professional management, and are steadily improving their cost structures and customer service. And they're service companies. When Beijing says it wants SOE reform, this presumably is what it means.
In contrast, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), which is making both jets, is a politically favored, cheap-capital-enjoying monopolist—definitely an old-time SOE. Now the carriers risk being dragged back into the mire through coerced cooperation with an "unreformed" state-owned enterprise.
There are serious doubts about the fuel-efficiency of the new jets given the age of the Western technologies on which they're based. Ditto for maintenance costs and reliability. Carriers can't be sure whether passengers will want to buy tickets for flights operated by the planes—in the auto market, where consumers are given a choice, foreign-branded cars still dominate thanks to perceptions about quality and safety.
Any serious SOE reform would allow service-providing SOEs that already have made important internal improvements to try their hand at making decisions about which planes to buy on commercial grounds. To the extent the jet program's ultimate success requires that airlines be induced to play along, it will undermine reform.
This only compounds the damage inflicted on air carriers by Beijing's most successful transportation-related industrial policy: development of a high-speed rail network with supposedly indigenous technology. In that instance, state rail operators using state resources have laid thousands of kilometers of track on which run state-created high-speed trains to compete with the airlines. Carriers are unenthusiastic about an uneconomical indigenous jet in part because they'll face increased competition from high-speed rail.
Perhaps Beijing really does know what it's doing, and Comac will eventually become a viable global rival to Airbus and Boeing. Given enough time and money, Comac probably could manage to do so. But as the Rand report makes clear, such a goal is not cost-free for Beijing. Indeed, it may run counter to other important pro-growth measures Beijing has promised.
volleyballer
Banned Idiot
Re: Rand Report: Beijing's Flight of Fancy
RAND report or not, the way China is going about the passenger jet program is all backwards in my view. They ought to try to commercialize military planes instead as a first step. Instead of writing COMAC a blank cheque, I say give SAC and CAC the permission to venture into the civilian market themselves.
RAND report or not, the way China is going about the passenger jet program is all backwards in my view. They ought to try to commercialize military planes instead as a first step. Instead of writing COMAC a blank cheque, I say give SAC and CAC the permission to venture into the civilian market themselves.
Skywatcher
Captain
The C919 will probably turn an overall profit, and have a decent foreign presence (though probably only after 2025-2030).
RAND Corp brings up a good point about the ARJ-21 and the high speed rails, though.
RAND Corp brings up a good point about the ARJ-21 and the high speed rails, though.
Re: Rand Report: Beijing's Flight of Fancy
COMAC is not an old-time SOE. It´s a recent company. They wanted a new organization to handle civilian planes industry, not military-oriented AVIC.(at least thats how i see it)
And how does the author suggest that china creates an airplane-building company? They are going to have to start from the bottom, including launching uncompetitive products and spending a lot of time and money until the whole enterprise is even minimally profitable. This is what happens when you have decades of delay to the main market players. But this is a long term enterprise. I dont think anyone is disputing that.
COMAC is not an old-time SOE. It´s a recent company. They wanted a new organization to handle civilian planes industry, not military-oriented AVIC.(at least thats how i see it)
And how does the author suggest that china creates an airplane-building company? They are going to have to start from the bottom, including launching uncompetitive products and spending a lot of time and money until the whole enterprise is even minimally profitable. This is what happens when you have decades of delay to the main market players. But this is a long term enterprise. I dont think anyone is disputing that.
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