Made-in-China airliner wows buyers at Singapore Airshow
China’s first domestically produced passenger jet was presented at Asia’s biggest airshow, which opened in Singapore on Tuesday, as Beijing seeks to stamp its presence in global aviation.
With its C919 aircraft, Beijing wants to challenge the decadeslong dominance of top planemakers Airbus and Boeing while reducing its reliance on foreign technology.
The single-aisle model from COMAC is a potential competitor to the market-leading A320, made by Europe’s Airbus, and the 737 MAX from US-based Boeing — which kept a low profile at the Singapore Airshow following a recent safety crisis.
On the first day of the event in the city-state Tuesday, the C919 wowed the crowd of trade exhibitors, aviation executives and officials with sleek aerial manoeuvres, sporting a white, green and navy-blue livery.
It will take part in the daily flying displays at the six-day event, and features among the static exhibits at a sprawling site near Changi Airport.
A C919 plane in the China Eastern livery was among dozens of commercial and military aircraft on the ground. Beside it were two ARJ21s, smaller commercial jets also made by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC).
The C919 has been making commercial flights in China since May, and was displayed for the first time outside mainland China in Hong Kong in December.
While it has yet to attract buyers outside the country, the C919 scored its first order at the airshow from China’s Tibet Airlines, which signed a contract to buy 40 of them and 10 ARJ21s.
Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment Group also bought six ARJ21s which it will use for firefighting, medical service and emergency management, COMAC said in a statement.
A spokesperson for COMAC at the airshow would not give a value for the order.
Although the airshow is a good opportunity for Beijing to show off the C919, finding a bigname buyer will be hard, said aviation analyst Shukor Yusof of Singapore-based consultancy Endau Analytics.
“There’s still a stigma with the ‘made-in-China’ brand in the aviation industry, even if China now leads the world in the electric vehicle market,” he told AFP.
“It will take time for the C919 to land an order from a major carrier,” he said, even though it’s “a matter of when, not if, a toptier airline buys a Chinese-made commercial jet”.
Underscoring China’s strong presence at the airshow, Beijing also showcased its military capabilities, exhibiting for the first time at the airshow the Z-10ME attack helicopter, its answer to the US-made Apache.