VIVAERO

COMAC C919: from great initial euphoria to current reality shock

China may be close to joining the select club of countries with the capacity to develop and produce large-scale commercial aircraft. Although the country needs no introduction for its manufacturing capabilities, especially its technological leap in the last thirty years, commercial aviation was its last frontier in the consolidation of a global power.

Comac took its first steps into the commercial aviation market with the C919, its first project created from scratch. Although the ARJ21 was its first certified model, the program was based on the platform of the MD-80, which was produced under license in China.

In January, according to Zhang Yujin, Deputy General Manager of Comac, the C919 accumulates at least 1,200 orders. Although Comac's portfolio is not public, the latest report released by the Mercator Institute for China's Studies pointed to 305 firm orders by the end of 2022, which puts the total disclosed by Yujin within the sector's realistic perspectives for the amount of confirmed orders. , purchase options and purchase intentions. However, Chinese airlines have released orders that add up to less than 100 planes, conflicting Comac's official and unofficial figures for the C919.

Officially, Comac states that its initial objective is not to dispute the global market of Airbus and Boeing, but to guarantee its presence in the Chinese domestic market, with potential sales that exceed 3,000 aircraft in twenty years. If his expectations are confirmed, Comac will be the third largest aircraft manufacturer in just two decades, surpassing Embraer, which has held the position for several years.

The central government's official plans are that by 2025, Comac will hold 10% of orders in the commercial aircraft segment with up to 180 seats, moving towards something close to a third in ten years.

Still, against the government's plans, the country's three big state-owned airlines, China Southern, Air China and China Eastern, made a total of just 20 each for the C919.

In addition, Beijing faces a strong commercial clash with the United States, which maintained the ban on flights with the 737 MAX family for more than three years, with China being the first country to suspend services with the model and one of the last to release operations. 

An onslaught on the global market should occur in a second moment, when the C919 is consolidated among Chinese airlines. The strategy aims to guarantee the improvement of the project and the qualification of after-sales support in international standards.

For the time being, the C919 delivered in December 2022 to China Eastern Airlines began the scheduled flight campaign, validating design parameters and operational capabilities of the airline and Comac engineering. The intention is for the plane to accumulate at least 100 hours of validation flights with passengers, flying between Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu, Lanzhou, Haikou, Nanchang, Kunming and Jinan.

Operations will be monitored by technical teams from Comac and aviation authorities in China, validating the operational capacity and compliance with all safety and reliability standards of the project. China Eastern Airlines' first four C919s are expected to be declared fully operational in the middle of the second quarter.

One of the obstacles to the C919, in an eventual worsening of political relations with the West, is that most of its systems, including avionics, flight computers and engines, are supplied by companies in the United States and Europe. The Chinese strategy was to follow the Western model of a project based on off-the-shelf items, as Airbus, Boeing and Embraer usually do. By avoiding the complete development of the plane locally, China reduced costs and risks, and increased the project's chances of economic viability.

The US Department of Commerce recently released a comprehensive list of Chinese companies that are barred from trading with Chinese manufacturers. Part of the blockages include several subsidiaries of AVIC (Aviation Industry Corporation of China), the state-owned conglomerate that controls Comac. The allegations indicate that the listed companies maintain ties with military industries, thus being a threat to the United States and its allies in the region. For several years, the White House has been concerned about the Chinese strategy of unifying its civil and military parks under the same control and production lines. The objective, according to Washington, is to allow China to modernize its military assets using Western technologies and industrial capabilities.

On the other hand, China has no concrete plans to move towards full technological dominance in the aeronautical sector, opting for the path of its main rivals, which, by the way, have part of the electronic components produced in the country.

This has been one of the biggest guarantees for China that the West will not move forward with a trade blockade or sanctions. Western industry's dependence on Chinese production lines, especially in the electronics, batteries and communications segment, keeps Comac comfortable using North American and European components in its planes.

The promise of the C919 is to become the first non-Western commercial aircraft with global success, surpassing in numbers and technology the Soviet projects that were always restricted to countries under Moscow's influence, especially at the height of the Cold War. China faces a long way to establish itself as a global commercial aviation player, but history shows that the country has the intellectual and financial capacity to take this step further.