A smaller wide body plane is not cheaper per seat per mile than a larger wide body plane. There isn’t even an advantage for short haul routes because one long range plane can just do multiple rounds of one route or do point to point routes. All the shorter range does is constrain flexibility without giving any economic benefit.
COMAC C929 Widebody Airliner
- Thread starter Iron Man
- Start date
lcloo
Captain
An extract from Boeing's forecast in 2021 ob China market:-
Boeing projected a need for nearly 6,500 new single-aisle airplanes over the next 20 years, while China's widebody fleet, including passenger and cargo models, will require 1,850 new planes, accounting for 20% of total deliveries.
Market need is 80% narrowbody jets, and 20% widebody jets.
Boeing projected a need for nearly 6,500 new single-aisle airplanes over the next 20 years, while China's widebody fleet, including passenger and cargo models, will require 1,850 new planes, accounting for 20% of total deliveries.
Market need is 80% narrowbody jets, and 20% widebody jets.
The market for chinese airliners will be (almost) exclusively Chinese airline companies. The west will not be buying chinese planes.
And actual destination for chinese airliners will not include US destinations. FAA will not certify chinese planes even if it means Boeings do not fly within China. THAT is the whole idea behind this notional medium range widebody. (it's not a small widebody, it's a full sized, 8 seats abreast big plane. Just not designed for 12 000 km and over kind of range) Airbus and Boeing thus have a completely different set of market accessibility and market parameters to work with than what a chinese widebody would have. It's not a direct comparison.
Medium range wide body is cheaper per seat per mile than a long range wide body when great majority of flights that even the long range wide body could fly to would be medium range flights. It'd be perfectly optimized for such medium routes.
Of course short haul routes are not well served by big and long range planes. But they're served by single aisle planes, as it's more cost efficient. Otherwise we'd all fly in B777s on all routes, no matter how short they are.
Absolutely. Which is why C919 is a hugely important plane for China. And C929 or any long/medium range plane is an afterthought compared to it. That being said, it still doesn't make sense to make the C929 a vanity project, and make it optimized for routes it will almost never fly to.
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Even Boeing and Airbus don't really make plane models which compete DIRECTLY with one another. There are small subclasses in pax numbers and range between both B737 and A320 as well as b787 and a350 and B777, and in each of those narrow sub segments one product from one manufacturer is king.
C929, in its last iteration, was/is aiming directly at a super crowded segment that's already served by competitor's planes. EVEN if there were no geopolitical issues in the market, it'd be a super hard sell, it'd be very hard to break into such a market. But given the geopolitics at play - it makes little sense to even attempt to serve a market that simply won't be there for chinese airlines.
Instead of aiming for a direct competitor to A330-900 but with less range, COMAC should aim for a different subsegment. Obviously, the tech level isn't there to fully compete on range per seat even with A330-900, let alone A350-900, so even in a market devoid of geopolitics that model wouldn't really fly. But aiming at a segment that's not served by A330, A350, B787 or B777 - instead aiming for a segment that's just below those - now that's a sweet spot that happens to serve both the majority of future routes of Chinese airlines, and may even sell a few planes to airlines in neutral countries.
Given Russian sanctions, next big thing is probably making C919 domestic. Everything else really comes second.
There is a good chance CR929 will also move in that direction...assuming it'll survive.
As a bonus, it'll make both available for non-civilian applications.
The problem with current C919 that it cannot have much direct flights from Northern Chinese cities to South East Asia or even South India.
I dont think A321XLR class aircraft can cover all the flight routes from East China to Africa/Middleast/Europe.
There is still need two class of aircraft regardless of market size
I dont think A321XLR class aircraft can cover all the flight routes from East China to Africa/Middleast/Europe.
There is still need two class of aircraft regardless of market size
By the time China certifies C919 and start delivery, it will be another 5 years, at least, for Comac to ramp up production to satisfied domestic needs. By then, there is no reason to think that Comac cannot come up with a C919XR.
Not going to replace the C929 or equivalent. But still can fill a gap that China needs.
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The standard C919 has a cruise range of 4000km and the extended range version 5500km.
The extended range version should be good for the majority of India and much of SE Asia.
If you're talking about flying 5000km, that would be a flight time of 6 hours. Passenger traffic will start dropping off significantly by that point/
I think you’re getting two things confused here. Medium size vs large size is not the same as medium range vs long range.
Wrt to the former the actual purchase, maintenance, and operation cost between a 200 seater vs 300 seater wide body is not going to be drastically different. Meanwhile, more passengers for each flight subsidizes the same per sortie flying costs, including fuel burn. Even if there’s some actual marginal costs in fuel consumption for adding a passengers that’s much smaller than the amount of money you get from the passenger. Over the length of an airframe’s lifecycle the actual amount of money you make with 300 seats vs 200 seats more than offsets any lifetime cost differences between the two. Furthermore, for the same amount of demand per route you need only 2/3rd the number of planes for a 300 seater vs a 200 seater. Again, there’s a reason why the market for A300s have all but evaporated.
On the latter, if your plane is designed to be longer range that also means it’s going to have better fuel fraction. So your fuel consumption per miles travelled will be better than if you’re medium range at the same size. Nothing stipulates that a commercial plane must use up all its fuel en route for it to be efficient. It’s not like the plane dumps it’s remaining fuel every time it lands. Any fuel that isn’t used up by a longer range plane at arrival will simply be used for its next departure. There’s no waste here from not using up all your fuel from a trip. You can of course design a smaller plane with the same fuel fraction, as a larger plane, but then that gets back to the more seats=more subsidization for the same operation costs equation.
This 4000km of C919 does not make sense as it takes too much engineering resources to create another version for slightly incremental range increase.
but i agree 6 hours will be maximum to deal in this weight class of aircraft but airlines need flexibility of as many destinations from same type of aircraft and manufacturer need standardization. i will put 7 hours staying power aircraft. some where around 6000km range as the benchmark. this A321XLR takes several years. and we dont know how actually successful it will be as it is non-standard aircraft and will have real challenge post covid and post ukraine environment. or is it even in Airbus interest to put its limited manpower on such an value aircraft.
wide body has the range flexibility of avoiding unfriendly airspace or loiter/alternative airport incase of other natural and man made problems.
What????
A321XLR is a huge success by any measure. It already has several hundred orders and it still has yet to enter service anywhere. Most recently AC just ordered 26 XLRs.
As a whole, the market is moving toward large single aisle
If you take a look at A320NEO orders/deliveries. A321NEOs (including LR/XLR) drastically outpaces A320NEO in the recent years. There is a reason for that. As engine technology improves, the most optimized aircraft is typically the largest one. You can take a look at how many people 737-100 seated vs how many MAX10 seats. These aircraft really grow over time.
The current market demand is for single aisle aircraft that goes further. C919 is probably good as a first generation mainline single aisle aircraft. C929 probably works well as a first generation mainline twin aisle aircraft. These are good projects for COMAC to start off with. If they want to have an internationally competitive aircraft, the ideal place to go for is the theoretical A320.5, A321 and A322 lineup. Again since C919 hasn't completed development yet, that product gap I just listed would be quite ambitious.