Comac is ready to challenge Airbus and Boeing: Air China will be the launch customer for the C929, the new widebody made in China

It will be Air China the launch customer of the C929, the first wide-body aircraft made in China; saying this a few days ago was the deputy director of Comac, Liu Yan, but without specifying either the numbers of aircraft ordered or the delivery date. 

If the C919 competes with single-aisle aircraft made in the U.S. and Europe such as Airbus' Boeing 737 and A320 family, respectively, the C929 aims to steal some ground from the two giants' widebodies. Or rather: that is the goal. First, however, he will have to obtain the certification by EASA (the European Union Aviation Safety Agency) and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration).

COMAC, more specifically, announced that the C929 will have a capacity between 280 and 400 seats e a range of 7,500 miles nautical (about 12,000 km), roughly the same as Boeing's Dreamliner.

As my colleague Matteo Legnani has explained in other articles, Comac is a consortium of aerospace companies-founded by the Chinese government in 2008-whose purpose is to make passenger aircraft. The first aircraft produced was the ARJ21: thanks to the two engines located at the rear of the fuselage, it is vaguely reminiscent of an MD-80 (although it is shorter and less capacious, having a capacity of about 90 passengers).

THE ARJ21, with the livery of Chengdu Airlines, Flew for the first time with passengers on board in 2016; to date it has been produced in about 120 units and is featured in the fleets of Air China, China Eastern, China Southern, China Express Airlines, Jiangxi Air and Genghis Khan Airlines.

The other aircraft produced by Chinese Comac is the C919, referred to by many as the "copy of the A320." To date, a dozen have been produced: 8 owns them China Eastern, 2 have the colors of Air China and another 2 are part of the fleet of China Southern.

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