China Daily | Reuters
The first C919 passenger jet made by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) is pulled out next to a Chinese national flag during a news conference at the company’s factory in Shanghai, Nov. 2, 2015.
The manufacturer of China’s first homegrown passenger jet is targeting Southeast Asian customers in an attempt to expand its customer base outside of the world’s second-largest economy.
The state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp of China — or Comac for short — says it has secured more than 700 orders for its narrow-body C919 plane, which aims to one day rival Boeing’s 787 and the Airbus A350. Germany’s PuRen Airlines and City Airways of Thailand are among the aircraft’s foreign buyers, but the majority of customers remain Chinese leasing companies and Chinese airlines.
The company is now concentrating its attention on potential Southeast Asian buyers, Lu Zheng, the company’s deputy general manager of sales and marketing, said at the Singapore Air Show on Tuesday. However, no deals are expected during the week-long aviation spectacle, Lu noted. Africa, Middle Asia and West Asia will be the company’s next regions of focus, followed by Europe and Japan, he continued: “We are going step by step.”
The C919’s first delivery — to China Eastern Airlines— is scheduled for 2021, Lu said, adding that China’s certification process takes three to four years.
The 168-seat jet, a symbol of Beijing’s aerospace ambitions, flew for the first time in May last year but international concerns about the craft’s reliability are rampant. That’s where a recent bilateral aviation agreement between Washington and Beijing could help. In October last year, the world’s two largest economies signed a pact that recognized each other’s safety standards and regulatory systems for aviation products.
Comac is currently in the middle of developing a wide-body commercial jet known as the C929 with Russia.
