COMAC C919
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
Most of the orders are from Chinese airlines and China-based leasing companies, but at least it is a great start with 500+ jets ordered.C919's orders according to AW&ST:
Notice how the big 3 China airlines... Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines each ordered only 5 with option for 15 more? If this was about testing the C919, their options would be many dozens, if not 100. Now that Boeing's future in China is pretty much dead, the safe thing to do would be to diversify aircraft purchases away from sanctionable Boeing/Airbus duopoly. It's this mentality of comparative advantage that has held back China's domestication efforts. Honestly, what China needs is a threat from the EU to sanction Airbus sales to knock some sense into management. This is what's been happening in the semiconductor sector and it's for that reason that China finally began making serious progress towards a complete semiconductor supply chain.
500 is nothing. There is potential to 10X this only in China.
Most of the C919 buyers in the list are aircraft-leasing companies, many of which are based in China. Chinese airlines would then pay a monthly rent and associated costs to operate these planes.
To put it simply, aircraft-leasing companies are the owners of these planes, while Chinese airlines rent these planes from those leasing companies to operate them as normal passenger/cargo service aircrafts. I think the same can be said with the C919 here.
In fact, by July 2022, 1541 out of 2387, or around 65% of all passenger (and cargo) aircrafts operated by China's Big-3 airlines (Air China, China Eastern, China Southern) are actually owned by aircraft-leasing companies.
Last edited:
I know China's business culture is conservative, but orders of 5 C919 is basically nothing compared to the hundreds they buy from Boeing/Airbus. The management in these companies are completely ignoring the geopolitical environment in favor of the short-term, aka. the Harvard Business School of comparative advantage. COMAC must become a viable alternative to Airbus/Boeing given the very possible eventual sanctioning of both of them from China. There cannot be any compromise with this. If China's mainline carriers will not directly purchase large numbers of the C919, and eventually the C929/CR929, then there has to be some kind of domestic content rules in place to ensure it happens. This would apply to the airlines and leasing companies. This can't be done immediately, but it could be phased in gradually and the content requirement increased over time. Otherwise, what happened in the semiconductor industry may and probably will happen to the aerospace industry.
Then what do you suggest those Chinese airlines (and leasing companies) to do?
Cancel those hundreds of Airbus and Boeing orders, put the same amount of orders on C919 and C(R)929, and wait??
Last edited: