China’s C919 maker has sky-high ambitions to grab a piece of the aviation pie from Boeing, Airbus as domestic demand soars

State-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China plans to expand domestic aviation market by boosting production this year – a move buoyed by the post-Covid recovery in global aviation

Comac could claim 3 per cent of the world’s narrowbody-aircraft share from Boeing and Airbus by 2027, according to analysts

Reading Time:2 minutes

A C919 flies over Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour in December. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 10:00am, 26 Jan 2024

China will invest heavily in the next few years to expand the production capacity of its home-grown C919 passenger jet as its maker tries to grab more market share from dominant players Airbus and Boeing.

The state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the producer of the narrowbody plane, has plans to greatly boost its production capacity this year, according to comments made by its deputy general manager, Zhang Yujin, to prominent news outlet The Paper on Wednesday.

The investment will amount to tens of billions of yuan over the next three to five years, Zhang revealed on the sidelines of the Shanghai municipal people’s congress.

The domestically developed C919 airliner is designed to carry between 140 and 210 passengers and aims to directly compete with Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’ A320.

As of this month, Comac has delivered four C919 aircraft to its first customer, China Eastern Airlines.