Stanley Chao

Opinion | Why the C919 is more than just an aircraft for China

With its home-grown passenger jet, Comac is trying to break into a long-standing aviation duopoly, while China hopes to turn a unipolar world order into a more multipolar one

The C919’s first voyage is a bittersweet success, though, because US-China tensions mean it won’t be able to compete with Boeing and Airbus in their backyard

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China’s first domestically produced passenger jet, the C919, is seen before a flight from Shanghai to Beijing at Shanghai Hongqiao Airport on May 28. Its first commercial flight was a milestone event in the nation’s decades-long effort to compete with Western rivals in aviation. Photo: AFP

Stanley Chao

Published: 4:30pm, 23 Jun 2023

Finally, and with much fanfare, China’s first large home-grown passenger jet made its inaugural commercial flight last month. Produced by the Commercial Aircraft Company of China (Comac), the C919 jet embodies China’s rise to prominence on the world’s stage and reinforces its national pride and self-reliance.

To be sure, the C919’s flight from Shanghai to Beijing came after years of delays, cost overruns, engineering snafus and, more recently, US sanctions. China and its aviation industry have more work to do to garner respect and acceptance from the rest of the world, yet I speak from personal experience when I say that the sceptics would be wise to hedge their bets.

I myself once doubted whether the C919 would come to fruition. In 2013, when I worked as a consultant for Western companies supplying aviation technology to the C919, I wrote the following in Aviation Week: “I don’t think I’ll live long enough to one day step onto a C919 at Beijing Capital International Airport on its way to Chengdu or Shanghai.”

Clearly, my prediction was off by quite a few years, but my doubts were warranted at the time. Comac had been tasked with developing the most advanced kind of commercial jet even though the company had virtually no commercial aircraft experience. I was shocked to encounter engineers and executives asking basic questions such as, “Can you help us design a test protocol?” and “What documents are needed for Federal Aviation Authority approvals?”.

Chinese engineers who were only familiar with military-related aircraft were confronted with challenges unique to the commercial sector: how to keep down the cost of maintenance and repair, select and qualify foreign suppliers and calculate the total cost of ownership.

Seen in this light, Comac’s accomplishments are remarkable. The state-owned company was established only in 2008, yet it completed in 15 years what it took Boeing almost 40 years to do, even though the latter had a host of previous commercial aircraft designs from which to draw.