China steps up efforts to break Boeing and Airbus’ monopoly on aircraft market

China is stepping up efforts to break Boeing and Airbus’ stranglehold on the aircraft market, with the state-run manufacturer of its first domestic passenger jet seeking certification to fly over its shores.

COMAC’s heavily subsidized C919 aircraft made its first flight in 2023 and is currently flying on domestic routes of China’s three major state-owned airlines: Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. Starting this month, China Eastern Airlines will use C919 to fly the route between Hong Kong and Shanghai, which is its first scheduled commercial route outside mainland China.

Yang Yang, the company’s deputy general manager of marketing, told the Financial Times that the company aims to have the single-aisle aircraft flying in Southeast Asia by 2026 and obtain European certification as early as this year.

“We want to operate more aircraft within China and thoroughly identify any issues before we do that… bring them to Southeast Asia,” he said.

The C919 is a key project in President Xi Jinping’s push to move China upstream in the technology value chain, with the ultimate goal of challenging the Western duopoly of Boeing and Airbus.

Boeing’s financial woes and delivery delays, along with broader supply chain problems in the industry that have left it and Airbus facing engine and parts shortages, have weighed on the global aerospace industry and raised hopes for newcomers.

According to Airbus’s 2024 forecast, the world will need 42,430 new aircraft over the next 20 years, about 80% of which will be single-aisle aircraft. In March, one aircraft was delivered to Chinese airlines. By 2040, the number of aircraft delivered per month will increase from one to 11, and nearly 2,000 aircraft will be delivered by then.

However, Jonathan McDonald, manager of classic aircraft and freighters at IBA, said that while COMAC will eventually break into the export market, “Airbus and Boeing will be the narrow-body operators for the majority of airlines for the foreseeable future.” major supplier of aircraft”.

Global certification and maintenance support remain significant obstacles to COMAC’s C919 overseas operating ambitions.

To enhance its international influence, COMAC opened new overseas bases in Singapore and Hong Kong in October.

Mayur Patel, head of OAG Aviation Asia, said the new office was necessary to help drive new aircraft orders from customers.

But Richard Aboulafia, managing director of Aerodynamics Consulting, said: “Building sophisticated product support facilities in export markets is a very difficult and expensive job and a necessary prerequisite to compete with Airbus and Boeing. ”.

Although many Asian airlines have expressed interest in the C919, some executives privately say they are still hesitant.

“Maintenance support is the main issue,” said a person close to Indonesia’s TransNusa. The company has received three small ARJ21 aircraft from COMAC and is considering using the C919.

Analysts said that the road for COMAC to obtain overseas certification, especially the European Union Aviation Safety Agency certification, is also full of challenges.

“IBA does not expect the C919 to be certified in Europe in the near future,” McDonald said. “Europe has very strict certification parameters.”

Meanwhile, FAA certification could be complicated by U.S.-China tensions.

David Yu, an aviation industry expert at New York University Shanghai, said EU and U.S. regulators tend to be the “gold standard” for other global regulators.

While launching the C919, COMAC is also developing its first wide-body aircraft, the C929. In November at one of China’s biggest air shows in Zhuhai, the company announced that state-owned Air China had become the first airline to commit to flying the jet, which is designed to challenge larger aircraft such as the 787 Dreamliner made by Airbus and Boeing. airliner.

British aerospace and defense analyst Sash Tusa said that although the C929 provides China with another opportunity to prove its technological progress in the aerospace field, Chinese commercial aircraft may still rely on overseas engines. IBA estimates that the C929 will not enter service before 2040.

For the C919, key parts are still made in the West. The jet’s engine is supplied by CFM International, a French-American joint venture, while the auxiliary power unit is manufactured by Honeywell of the United States.

“So far, [Comac is] The aircraft being built are mostly Western values ​​but with Chinese structures,” said Aboulafia of Aerodynamics Consulting. “This makes production growth dependent on the West’s willingness to continue supplying the system, which is simply not guaranteed given Trump’s presidency.”

Tusa said COMAC may not be able to gain “a fair share of the global market” over the next decade but will provide important “import substitution” for domestic Chinese airlines.

“Airbus is produced in China. Boeing is not,” he said. “So COMAC becomes the second supplier. Import substitution does not make you a competitor. It makes you a national policy act.

Additional reporting by William Langley in Guangzhou