COMAC C919 (4339942885)” by Kentaro Iemoto from Tokyo, Japan
Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), received a 20 plane lease order from Thailand based City Airways. City ordered 10 C919s and 10 ARJ21 regional jets to replace their two leased Boeing 737-400s it has now and expand.
COMAC’s single-aisled C919 jetliner is designed to compete against Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’s A320. While not as fuel efficient or technologically advanced as new aircraft from Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Embraer, the planes are priced lower and have attractive terms.
It will be interesting to see if they can really break into that market! So far, there have been repeated delays on the C919, and the prototype is not yet completed to make its first flight. On the other hand, they have booked 500 orders from Chinese regional airlines, and now have their first foreign customer.
Incidentally, COMAC had an interesting partner in developing the specifications for the plane: Ryanair. Ryanair isn’t committed to buy anything, but they did help COMAC understand what they might be interested in eventually…