New China plane is scheduled to take off this year – but who wants to fly with it?

Created: 07/18/2022, 05:15 p.m

By: Sven Hauberg

In November 2015, the Comac C919 was presented to the public for the first time.

© China Photo Press/Imago

The Comac C919, the first large civil aircraft developed in China, is scheduled for delivery this year.

Will the plane also fly through Europe one day?

Shanghai – Getting behind the wheel of a Chinese car is unthinkable for the majority of Germans.

In a survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of

last year, one in three respondents ruled out buying a car made in China, and another 25 percent were more likely to reject it.

The main reason: In car country Germany, people distrust the skills of Chinese vehicle manufacturers.

If the Germans don't want to be on the road in a Chinese car, how great should the skepticism be when it comes to airplanes?

Who would climb into a plane in this country that was not produced by Airbus, Boeing or another well-known manufacturer, but by a company from China that hardly anyone outside of industry circles knows?

This is still a rather theoretical question.

Because while Chinese car manufacturers are springing up like mushrooms and are increasingly penetrating the European market, no planes from the People's Republic are taking off from airports in Germany or anywhere else in Europe.

But the dominance of Western aircraft manufacturers could soon be over.

The first large civil aircraft developed in China, the C919 from the state-owned manufacturer Comac from Shanghai, is to be delivered this year.

The Comac name stands for Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China;

the fact that it begins with the letter “C” is no coincidence – it sees itself in the same ranks as Airbus and Boeing and wants to compete with the A320 and the 737.

The Comac ARJ21 has been flying through the People's Republic since 2016, a small regional jet for 70 to 100 passengers, which was also developed in China but, according to experts, is very similar to McDonnell Douglas machines.

The C919, on the other hand, is considered a Chinese in-house development.

However, it is unclear whether the China machine, which can accommodate up to 168 people, will actually start commercial operation this year.

After all, there had always been delays in the past, the maiden flight took place five years ago and development began in 2008.

China's C919: More expensive than expected - and no more advanced than the competition

“It is a completely newly developed aircraft.

It can happen again and again that the approval authorities still have questions and new requirements," explains Laura Frommberg, Editor-in-Chief of the industry magazine 

You often only notice during the flight tests where adjustments are necessary," says the aviation expert to

by

Although not everything is really new about the C919: It is no more advanced than the models of the competition, and a large part of the installed parts come from abroad, including the engines.

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According to Chinese state media, more than 800 orders have already been received for the C919 – mainly from the People’s Republic.

But foreign airlines such as Ryanair have also expressed interest in the new machine in the past.

Ultimately, it shouldn't just be what the plane can do and how safe it is - but also what it costs.

The list price is said to be $99 million apiece, well above what was announced just a few years ago.

The difference to comparable machines - such as the $111 million A320neo or the Boeing 737 Max ($117 million) is less than expected.

So while the Chinese government can oblige its airlines to buy domestically manufactured machines, Comac is likely to struggle on the international market.

The fact that so many components of the C919 come from abroad also makes them vulnerable to sanctions – for example in the event that China invades Taiwan.

Even the production of the machine was hampered by certification problems because strict US export regulations had delayed the delivery of spare parts.

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Is China's aircraft manufacturer Comac breaking the duopoly between Airbus and Boeing?

Nevertheless, expert Frommberg believes: "Those who write off the plane now and don't calculate any chances of success are making a mistake." She compares the situation with the car market, where manufacturers from Japan and South Korea once had a difficult time.

"At first they were smiled at, but then they put the long-established people under massive pressure and even ensured that there were new trends in design and construction." With cars from the Far East, however, it was once the low price that made the tin boxes attractive.

Bargains are not to be expected with the Comac C919.

Frommberg does not believe that "the day after tomorrow Lufthansa and Swiss will fly with C919".

In the long run, however, this is entirely possible.

That would also mean that the duopoly that Airbus and Boeing have had for decades would be broken by the Comac plane.

So the Europeans and the Americans would have to dress warmly.

"That's not necessarily a bad thing," says Frommberg.

"A healthy competitive situation ultimately ensures more innovation, because none of the market participants can rest on their laurels."

Should the C919 actually fly passengers through China for the first time this year, it would probably take off half empty.

Because while the airlines in Germany can hardly save themselves from passengers and have not been able to fly the Germans, who are just bursting with travel desire, to Mallorca or the Canary Islands for weeks, the many corona lockdowns in China's metropolises have caused the market to collapse.

According to figures from the aviation authority in Beijing, just under 12 million passengers were counted on domestic routes in May.

A year earlier it was almost 51 million.

"Most people in the industry do not expect a recovery before 2024," says aviation expert Frommberg.

China: Massive corona restrictions lead to slumps in air traffic

No wonder: tens of millions of Chinese are still affected by complete or partial lockdowns because the government around state and party leader Xi Jinping is adamantly sticking to its zero-Covid strategy despite the spread of the Omicron variant.

It goes so far that sometimes a single positive case is enough to lock hundreds of thousands in their homes.

Of course, there is little desire to fly to another city.

The routes from China to foreign countries or vice versa are even less busy than on the domestic routes;

only around 100,000 passengers were counted here in May, a drop of 90 percent compared to January 2020. That is not surprising either.

Because if you enter China, you first have to be in quarantine for days and then fear – see above – that you will become the victim of a lockdown.

Foreign companies report that it is therefore becoming increasingly difficult to send employees to China.

And the Chinese themselves have hardly been able to leave their own country since mid-May.

China's national immigration authorities only allow people to leave the country in urgent cases.

The logic behind it: Whoever flies abroad is more likely to come back again - and not only has nice holiday memories in their luggage,

China's airlines are not only struggling with the pandemic.

High crude oil prices and the weak yuan are also adding pressure.

In addition, the background to the mysterious plane crash in March has still not been clarified.

At that time, a Boeing 737 fell almost vertically from the sky in southern China, killing all 132 people on board.

According to media reports, investigations by US investigators indicate that the pilot may have caused the plane to crash on purpose.

This uncertainty also creates uncertainty among passengers.

China: There should be 400 airports by 2035

The government in Beijing wants to help the battered aviation industry with emergency loans equivalent to around 20 billion euros.

There have also recently been subsidies, the payment of which is linked to conditions that many airlines cannot meet.

China's airlines are not disputing this, they seem to believe firmly that things will pick up again soon.

It was only announced at the beginning of July that China Southern, China Eastern, Air China and Shenzhen Airlines had ordered a total of almost 300 medium-haul aircraft from the A320neo model family from Airbus.

The deals are the first major aircraft orders from China in around three years.

The machines are to be delivered between 2023 and 2027.

Despite the bleak prospects, the airlines' euphoria has a good reason: China's Communist Party wants there to be 400 airports across the country by 2035 - so far there have been around 240. It should then be possible to transport two billion people a year.

And they have to get on somewhere – for example on the C919.

Only one question remains: how all of this should fit together with the Chinese government's climate goals.

Because even the new aircraft made in China burns tons of kerosene to take off.