Another Milestone For China: C919 Jetliner Completes Debut Commercial Flight

The words “MADE IN CHINA” have become imprinted on products worldwide, on almost every household object, from kettles to cabinets. And now, those words have entered another market: The aviation industry.

The COMAC C919, developed by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, had just completed its first commercial flight on May 28th, operated by China Eastern Airlines. The flight took off from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and landed at Beijing’s Capital International Airport. The C919 itself is a narrow-body, twin-engine, one-aisle commercial aircraft, and something China is very proud of, as it’s China’s first homegrown large aeroplane.

The development of this aeroplane began in 2006, and an attempt by Chinese aircraft designers to gain some ground in the market of single-aisle jetliners, a section of the global aviation industry still being dominated by giants Boeing and Airbus today. And all the painstaking effort, money, and time spent on developing and testing the C919 have finally paid off, as it is officially in operation. However, there’s still a substantial distance to cover if China wants to dominate the aeroplane market, at home and abroad.

Why is that? The commercial aviation industry is complicated, with all the airlines, plane and part manufacturers, market shares, brands, etc. However, today, we’ll focus on the aircraft manufacturing market and why it has been so hard for a third competitor to compete with giants Boeing and Airbus on market shares.

Combined, Boeing and Airbus have an estimated 90% share of the commercial aircraft sector. The secret to Boeing and Airbus’s dominance lies in their history and innovation in the industry. In the early days of flying, the American Boeing built and sold planes to the U.S. military in WWI, while the younger European Airbus later made a rival commercial jet. And then there is the efficiency of the current single-aisle dominators: the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families. Comparing the COMAC C919 to the Boeing 737-800, there are a lot of similarities in the specs. The C919 is 38.9 metres, and the 737 is 39.5 metres long. They also have similar wingspan, height, and weight. C919 got designed to carry more passengers in the default all-economy configuration than the 737. However, looking at the range category, we can see that the Boeing 737 has a significantly longer range, at about 5,430 kilometres, while the C919 can only fly an estimated 4075 kilometres.

That’s not good news for COMAC, as airlines would logically want the longer-range 737 over the C919. But there are still a lot of customers for the C919, not abroad, but at home, where there have already been close to 300 orders for the aircraft from various Chinese airlines. It’s a good start for the aeroplane, and as it comes at a lower price than the 737, it might further give itself some market competitiveness. And it’s not to say that Boeing doesn’t have its problems either. The accidents and grounding of its 737 Max planes have significantly impacted its market shares, giving Airbus the lead in what was previously a close-tied race for decades. There might be a chance that COMAC and its C919s could take a chunk of the shares that Boeing had lost and gain trust from airlines abroad. It might be when China finally makes its dream of having a substantial slice of the aeroplane market come true.

However, in reality, things might be “turbulent” for COMAC. A relatively new plane compared to its competitors, the C919 still has a lot to go through before it reaches global spotlight status. But the successful operation of C919 is already a milestone for COMAC and China. Its ability to manufacture an operational single-aisle aircraft means the company has the technology to develop the proposed wide-body twin-aisle C939. With that, COMAC would be well on its way to becoming the third global aviation giant.

So what is your opinion about the future of Chinese aviation? Post your thoughts in the comments. That’s the end of this production from the New News Newsminute about the maiden commercial flight of the C919. Thank you for reading, and subscribe to not miss out on the latest news updates.