AirChina will buy 100 Chinese-made passenger planes
AirChina, China’s flag carrier airline, announced that it will purchase 100 of the “C919” type domestic passenger planes produced by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC).
In its notification to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the company announced that it had placed an order for 100 new medium-distance passenger aircraft.
AirChina reached an agreement to pay a base price of $108 million for each of the C919s, with the planes scheduled to be delivered between 2024 and 2031.
It was noteworthy that in the agreement, a higher base price was determined for the newly launched C919 than its first sales.
AirChina announced on December 25, 2023 that it had ordered 6 C919s and 11 short-haul regional passenger aircraft ARJ21 from COMAC.
China Eastern bought each for $99 million
China Eastern, another state-owned airline, reached an agreement with COMAC to purchase 5 C919s for $99 million each in 2021.
The first delivery of the C919 was made on December 9, 2022, and the aircraft made its first commercial flight between Shanghai and Beijing on May 28, 2023.
China Eastern announced on September 28, 2023 that they had agreed to purchase 100 more C919s, to be delivered between 2024 and 2031.
China’s first domestically produced medium-distance passenger aircraft
China’s first domestically produced medium-distance passenger aircraft, the single-aisle and narrow-body “C919”, was designed as the equivalent of the “Boeing 737” and “Airbus 320” model passenger aircraft.
The aircraft made its first test flight on May 14, 2022, and received its license certifying its suitability for flight on September 30, 2022, and its mass production license on November 30, 2022.
With the launch of the “middle distance” passenger aircraft, which is the most widely used aircraft type in the civil aviation sector in the world, it is evaluated that China can have a share in the global passenger aircraft market, which is dominated by US Boeing and European Airbus companies.
Although the “C919”, which started to be developed by COMAC in 2008, aims to reduce the country’s foreign dependency, it is not entirely domestic as critical components such as the jet engine and control software are produced by US companies such as General Electric and Honeywell.