What it looks like inside and which companies it flies with: the Chinese ready to invade the skies with the A320 copy

Last week, at the Singapore Airshow, made its debut on an international stage on the Comac C919, the Chinese version of the A319 and the Boeing 737.

Comac is A consortium of aerospace companies founded by the Chinese government in 2008 For the purpose of making passenger airplanes.

His first 'product,' the ARJ21, flew for the first time with passengers on board in the colors of Chengdu Airlines in 2016 and to date it has been produced in about 120 units. It has a capacity of about 90 passengers and, from the outside resembles a shorter MD-80, with its two engines mounted at the rear of the fuselage. To date also flies for Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, China Express Airlines, Jiangxi Air and Genghis Khan Airlines. All Chinese airlines.

On the C919, however, Comac intends to focus more strongly, hoping that the bireactor can also sell abroad even though To date he is flying only with China Eastern Airlines and obtained An order at the Singapore Air Show for 40 examples from Tibet Airlines, which is also erra a Chinese company. This is because the C919, so far, has only been certified by the Civil Aviation Authority of China (CAAC), despite having made its first flight back in 2017.

Seven years after that debut, there are only about ten specimens made, of which only four (1 delivered in 2022, two in 2023, and one in 2024) In service with China Eastern (which has ordered 105 plus 15 options), which uses them in a Two-class configuration with 8 seats in Business (2+2) and 156 in Economy (3+3).

The C919 is also certified only by CAAC. But, after its debut in Singapore, it is possible that other civil aviation bodies from other nations (such as the European EASA or the American FAA) will come along and certify it, and the aircraft could become a competitor to the Airbus A320 family and the Boeing 737 family?

The jet has been called 'made in China,' but in reality Almost half of its components were made abroad. The engines are the Leap-1C Of the Franco-American consortium CFM (General Electric + Safran), the same ones mounted on the A320neo and 737 MAX; flight control systems are from American Honeywell and cockpit displays from General Electric Aviation.

The fuselage has the same width as the A320, and is therefore somewhat wider than that of the 737s, with the same number of seats (6) placed per row in Economy. But the range of the existing version, just over 4,000 kilometers, is far less than that of the neo and MAX, which Can fly up to 6,500km nonstop. And even the extended range version' is not expected to go beyond 5,500km range. In short, the C919 is a medium-range jet with similar performance to the A320ceo and 737NG, yet it competes with the neo and MAX.

There are two factors that might prompt some non-Chinese operators to choose the C919 For a reason other than reason of state: the price, should Comac faced with major orders from abroad decide to drop from the 100-110 million list price of its jet, which is very close to the list price of both the A320 neo and the 737 MAX 7; but most importantly delivery times, taking into account the fact that Airbus and Boeing have virtually exhausted slots for the entire decade.

In this case, Comac's production capacity is yet to be proven, as it has delivered just four airplanes (those flying with China Eastern) to customers in just over two years. Finally, there is to consider. the 'political' question: The U.S. and China are at loggerheads economically, and the European Union is on the same page as its U.S. ally, for EASA and FAA could be held back by factors not expressly within their purview, in certifying the Chinese jet (a process that, in any case, would take years).

But it is nevertheless possible that entities in other countries, such as. China and India, may give the Chinese jet the green light for those same (reversed) reasons why the C919 may never reach Western markets.

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