China’s First Homegrown Jet–And Why It Matters

An Aviation Industry Corp of China (AVIC) C919. (Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

For the nine or 10 people besides me that follow China’s commercial aerospace sector, Reinhardt Krause posted an excellent summary on how China’s plan to build its first big passenger plane promises to reshape its fast-growing aviation market and what’s at stake for suppliers. Here’s my take on how it impacts Boeing and Airbus.

The Sino Sitch

–China’s aviation market is booming, with passenger traffic growing 20% a year, aggressive capacity and fleet expansion and a whirlwind of consolidation activity.

–Airline stocks, such as Hong Kong-listed Air China, China Southern and China Eastern, have rebounded strongly in 2010.

–The country will open 10 new airports this year, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. The CAAC expects 250 airports by 2020, up from 176 at year-end.

Boeing and Airbus in China

–Boeing delivered its 800th airplane to China in July, and has an order backlog of nearly $30 billion from China. (Almost 60% of aircraft in China’s fleet is made by Boeing.)

–China is Boeing’s biggest export market. “Not by a little, but by a lot,” says Boeing Chief Executive James McNerney.

–If I had to guess, Airbus has delivered exactly 601 airplanes to China. Plus or minus 100. (Airbus doesn’t share info like Boeing does.

–That said, Chinese airlines will account for 20% of all Airbus planes delivered in 2010, compared with 3.5 percent a decade ago. (Opening a final assembly facility in Tianjin last year helps.)

Enter the C919

I’ve written a little about China’s homegrown jets before, but the next gen of indigenous aircraft promises to be a potential ball-buster for current airframe kingpins Boeing and Airbus. China’s next big thing, the home-grown C919, will be the first all new narrowbody in almost 30 years. Seating up to 190 passengers, the single aisle airliner packs a wallop on the status quo.

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