Reporter: "The single-aisle aircraft is designed by Comac to rival against other commercial passenger jet. The short and medium range jet is to carry around 168 passengers."
The Shanghai-based state-owned aircraft manufacturer sold 20 C919 passenger aircrafts to two Chinese airlines each and 10 jetliners to a unit of the US electric giant GE.
Tian Min, CFO of Comac, said, "We received orders for 50 C919 jetliners. It’s a certain sign of market recognition for our aircrafts. In the first batch, we got orders for 100 C919 aircrafts from back in the year of 2010. And most of our clients back then were big airlines such as AirChina, China Eastern, and China Southern airlines. But right now, more and more small airlines are taking interest in our products."
Comac says it expects its first C919 aircraft to be completed in 2014, while it aims to start the aircrafts delivery in 2016.
GE Capital Aviation Services, COMAC’s only foreign client so far, had ordered 10 C919 aircrafts previously. In total, it has ordered 20 C919 jetliners.
Liu Li, CEO of GE Capital Aviation Services, China, said, "We’re confident about the aircraft. And it’s normal in the industry to order aircrafts without seeing the real model."
The new model certainly attracts lots of airlines from home and abroad. But apparently for international giant Airbus, C919 has not yet threatened Airbus’ market share.
Laurence Barron, president of Airbus China, said, "Airbus is not afraid of competition. Competition is always good for the industry. And we thrived from competition."
China earlier unveiled it wants to develop domestic aircraft manufacturers as a strategic priority.
But few home grown aircraft makers were so far able to threaten the market shares of aircraft makers such as Boeing, Airbus or Bombardier.
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