Boeing and Airbus in the crosshairs of China’s civil airliner strategy

Two companies have dominated the world’s commercial airline market since the 1990s: Boeing from the United States and Airbus from Europe. For years, the competition has been fierce, with the lead in orders and production going back and forth between Boeing and Airbus. This production race between the two was churning out airliners at astounding, near World War II levels until COVID-19 in 2020.

However, Airbus has been pulling away from Boeing because of additional issues like the 737-Max fatal accidents, riveting quality control issues, and plug blowouts in flight. An industry source of record, Forecast International, stated on June 21: “In 2023, in total, Boeing and Airbus delivered 528 and 735 aircraft compared to 480 and 663, respectively, in 2022. In 2023, Airbus won the deliveries crown for the fifth consecutive year.”

Airbus and Boeing have dueled for years without any distractions from other manufacturers. However, another company is looking to step into this two-way race or duopoly.

That company is Chinese state-owned aerospace manufacturer Comac, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. government for having ties to the People’s Liberation Army.

Meanwhile, both Airbus and Boeing have experienced a setback linked to China.

Comac C919

The second-largest aircraft lessor in the world, Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), is forecasting that 2024 will be the breakout year for the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac). Comac has been working for years as a direct competitor to the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320. Comac received two large orders totaling 200 aircraft from Chinese airlines to be delivered over several years until 2031. The Chinese airlines have hundreds of Boeing and Airbus aircraft on backorder, but these were the first major orders for the Comac aircraft.

It is estimated that it will take another 10 years for Comac to achieve the Boeing/Airbus level of annual orders, but the 2024 orders were a good start. Two key issues are holding Comac back. First, the certification of the C919 and other Comac aircraft by the American Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and the European equivalent, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), is lagging.

Steven Udvar-Hazy, the executive chairman of one of the giants of commercial airliner leasing, Air Lease, was dismissive of the C919. “I do not believe at this point in time that the FAA and the AASA would certify the 919 and its current state for export,” he said in March 2024.

The other issue is the dependence of Comac on foreign parts. Comac’s supply chain incorporates non-Chinese companies and has come under significant export control scrutiny, which has slowed the C919 development. Comac is considered a questionable Chinese company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have this view of Comac: “Comac’s status as a fully-owned state enterprise, as well as its close relationships with the CCP and other aerospace companies, create a vulnerability that undermines both the national and economic security of the United States.”

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