COMAC C919
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
drunkmunky
Junior Member
I really hope this bad boy performs 'ok' and has a perfect safety record.
Infant aviation industry can never really afford any 'mistakes'
Infant aviation industry can never really afford any 'mistakes'
Supplier list v2.8 (Images via @国产民机走向商业成功之路 from Weibo)
By the way, 94 ARJ21 have been delivered.
By the way, 94 ARJ21 have been delivered.
APU maintenance access panels.Tail equipment bay.
C919 should start test flights with China Eastern starting Dec 26. It will need 100 hours of test flights before revenue service. As I said here, C919 is now the only alternative to Chinese airlines in the narrow body space.
If they don't order any more MAX (which looks likely), then Chinese airlines have to aggressively work with COMAC to improve the availability and improve the serviceability of C919. Otherwise, they will have no choice but to accept high pricing from Airbus or high lease prices for leasing firms.
As much as we obsess over IC industry on this forum, the reality is that building a modern airline supply chain might be even more complex. There appears to be nation wide effort to create a fully domestic supply chain right now. That will also need plenty of domestic support to be successful. At a minimum, I think all the domestic ministries need and leasing firm need to be forced to make orders for fully (or mostly) domestic C919 in order to have operators to verify their performance.
I think servicing will be key there to improving reliability, thus ensuring more availability and expanding use in a positive feedback loop. Having planes doesn't do you much good if they are grounded frequently. That is something Airbus and Boeing have honed over decades of experience to establish best practices that keep those fleets running at such high uptime. It is good Chinese airlines have so much experience with Boeing and Airbus, that knowledge will be invaluable when they partner with COMAC to get those programs off the ground. As much as IC equipment may be big on reliability and uptime, airliners are even more so. Unreliable IC equipment just costs you output and money, unreliable Airliners cost you trust and people's safety lives, which you can't earn back. The aftermarket service and repair program will be the most important element to COMACs domestic and future international success.