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Excerpts from:
SCMP
Explainer | C919: what is China’s home-grown passenger jet and can it compete with aviation giants Airbus, Boeing?
The C919 is China’s home-grown, narrow-body passenger jet designed to carry 158 to 192 passengers and compete with Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’ A320
State-owned manufacturer the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China has received over 300 orders for the C919, which could enter commercial operation in 2024
Published: 12:01am, 6 Feb, 2023
How has the C919 been received?
China Eastern Airlines ordered four of the aircraft in May at a cost of US$99 million each. Comac has said it plans to deliver the rest of the orders within the next two years.
At China’s biggest air show in Zhuhai in November, Comac said it had secured orders from seven leasing firms for 300 planes, a little over a month after it was certified to fly.
By late 2022, Comac had received 305 orders for the C919 in China, while Boeing had only received 116 for its 737 series, according to a report from the Mercator Institute for China Studies (Merics), a Berlin-based think tank.
Comac deputy general manager Zhang Yujin said in January the company had received more than 1,200 orders for the jet.
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Can the C919 really compete with Airbus and Boeing?
China’s home-grown passenger jet could break the duopoly of Boeing and Airbus in the domestic market and beyond despite its reliance of foreign parts, according to Merics.
The size of China’s aviation market, strong industrial policy and a sector dominated by state-owned companies gives the C919 an edge to advance the country’s “strategic objectives” in aviation, it said.
China has strong ambition in the commercial aviation market and the central government has laid out plans for the C919 to gain 10 per cent domestic market share by 2025.
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However, Boeing’s 737 family has been trailing the C919 for new orders in China. By late 2022, Boeing had only received 116 for its 737 series, according to Merics.
Airbus led the pack with 565 orders for its A320 in China, suggesting the duopoly is becoming a triopoly to the detriment of Boeing, Merics said.
But because China’s airlines are accustomed to operating Western passenger jets, the move to include C919 in their fleet is going to be gradual, Merics added.
China’s big three state-owned airlines – China Southern, Air China, China Eastern – have placed a combined 294 orders for Airbus’ A320 family and Boeing’s 737, but only 20 each for the C919.
What are the potential problems for the C919?
China has high hopes that the C919 will reduce dependence on foreign technology as ties with Western countries deteriorate.
However, most parts used for the C919 are imported from foreign manufacturers, including the engine, avionics, control systems, communications and landing gear.
Comac has been working to replace some of the foreign parts, including an alternative for the LEAP engine made by CFM International, a joint venture between American firm GE Aviation and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines.
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China’s aviation industry is facing more export control restrictions from the US as Washington is deeply concerned with the country’s military-civilian fusion strategy, which aims to modernise the country’s defence forces by integrating civilian research and the commercial sector with military-industrial players.
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US espionage allegations
According to a report from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike and a US Justice Department indictment, from 2010 to 2015 the Chinese cyberthreat actor Turbine Panda, linked to the Ministry of State Security’s Jiangsu Bureau, penetrated a number of the C919’s foreign components manufacturers including Ametek, Capstone Turbine, GE Aviation, Honeywell, Safran, and others and stole intellectual property and industrial process data with the aim of transitioning component manufacturing to Chinese companies.[28][29][30][31] The report stated that the operations involved both cyber intrusion and theft as well as HUMINT operations, in most cases using a piece of code custom written for this industrial espionage operation.[28][29][30][31]
As of 2019, four people have been arrested in the US as a result of investigations into this economic espionage and theft of trade secrets.[31]
In November 2022, a federal jury in Cincinnati convicted Yanjun Xu, 42, on counts of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, attempted economic espionage and attempted trade secret theft. The US court found that Xu played a key role in a plot to steal trade secrets from western aerospace firms, for the purpose of helping the C919 commercial airliner program. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison.[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comac_C919
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Nikkei Asia
China develops passenger jet, but 40% of parts suppliers are overseas
COMAC’s narrow-body aircraft faces steep hurdles in export market
ZHUHAI, China — A Chinese-made passenger jet set to compete with American and European rivals counts roughly 40% of its core component suppliers as overseas companies, exposing the risks posed by U.S. trade frictions to a plane that has been under development for more than a decade.
The C919 jetliner, being manufactured by the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, or COMAC, is due to be delivered to the first customer by the end of the year. However, with that deadline looming, the plane was a no-show at the Airshow China in Zhuhai on Thursday. COMAC instead exhibited a life-size model of the cabin.
“Boeing and Airbus alone will not be enough to meet demand,” a COMAC sales executive said at the event. “The new option we’ll provide will be in the interest of the airlines.”
The narrow-body jet will compete with bestselling models of its size: the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320. Although state-owned COMAC has not performed demonstration flights or unveiled an actual plane at the Zhuhai air show, it is widely believed that the C919 is approaching the conclusion of its development, which began in 2008.
But potential turbulence lays ahead for the C919’s business prospects. Out of the 39 lead suppliers for the plane, more than 40% hail from the U.S. or other countries outside China, according to documents from China-based brokerage Avic Securities and other sources. The remaining suppliers include joint venture firms backed by foreign companies.
Chinese companies are supplying the fuselage and the wings. But a host of Western suppliers are providing the brains and heart of the plane — the communication and flight control systems, among other core components.
The share of parts sourced from non-Chinese companies appears to rise even higher when tallied in terms of value. This underscores the extent that China’s domestically developed passenger jet is dependent on foreign contribution.
The engine poses a major challenge for domestic development. Currently, the C919 is due to be equipped with an engine manufactured by CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines.
COMAC is considering adopting the CJ1000 jet engine being developed by Aero Engine Corporation of China, a maker of military aircraft engines. But many observers believe that such an engine will not be commercially available in the near term.
“It will enter the market around 2030,” according to Zheshang Securities.
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