They’re trying to be able to provide planes for China.” “I don’t think they’re trying to build a global aircraft manufacturer. “History is definitely against them on that front, but I don’t know if the Chinese would care,” he said. Canada’s Bombardier was the last casualty, selling its single-aisle jets programme to Airbus in 2020. Despite having remarkably similar dimensions, sharing a 35.8m wingspan, it has a range of as little as two thirds that of its more established competitors and is based on technology a generation behind its Airbus rival and Boeing’s similar 737 Max.Ĭouched by some as a competitor to Boeing and Airbus models of similar size, the C919 is unlikely to immediately challenge the world’s biggest plane makers, says Rob Stallard, an analyst at Vertical Research Partners.īut Beijing is probably not aiming for a competitor to the pair, which dominate the market, challenged in the West only by Brazil’s Embraer at the smaller end of the market as other competitors have gradually been bought, gone bust or given up. The Comac C919 is about the size of the A319, one of the smaller jets in the Airbus lineup, carrying up to 174 passengers. The single-aisled jet has cost the country more than $70bn to develop and is seen as a large technological step in casting off dependence on the West, easing any consequences of Beijing’s more muscular approach to Taiwan. The China Eastern Airlines flight took travellers 660 miles from Shanghai to Beijing, following China’s most popular domestic route. Late last month Beijing celebrated an aerospace breakthrough as a Chinese-made jetliner took to the skies with paying customers onboard.
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