The Chinese "Threat"

At the Zhuhai Airshow COMAC presented first customers for their C919, aimed to be a competitor to the A320 and B737 narrowbody families.

COMAC said that there are now “up to 100 orders” – a closer look shows that 50 of these orders are firm orders the rest are options.

The four big airlines in China – Air China, China Eastern, China Southern and Hainan Airlines – all ordered the C919. The first three all ordered “up to 20”, probably meaning that 10 for each airline are firm orders and 10 are options.

GECAS is another launch customer – for 5 firm orders and another 5 options. This is not a big surprise, as GECAS is also a customer for the much-delayed ARJ21-700 and GE delivers the engines for both aircraft (as part of the CFM consortium in the case of the C919).

The last launch customer is CDB (China Development Bank) – also not a big surprise, as CDB wants to play a big role in aircraft leasing in the future and signed MoU’s with all civil aircraft manufacturers recently. An anticipated order for the Bombardier CSeries is still in the pipeline and will most probably not being made public during the Zhuhai Airshow, as Scott Hamilton assumed recently.

So the C919 got their first customers – fine! But do we see a threat for Airbus and Boeing here? Not really for the next 10-15 years to come, I would say. Let’s have a look at the numbers for outstanding firm orders from the Chinese airlines that now ordered the C919.

Airbus

Airline	A319	A320	A321	Sum
Air China		28	14	42
China Eastern	5	26	5	36
China Southern		25		25
Hainan	5	26		31
Sum	10	105	19	131

These are the numbers as in the Airbus O&D table from October 31, 2010.

We have to add the order the 50 A320 aircraft which was signed early November.

So the total is 181 open orders.

Boeing

Airline	B737-700	B737-800	B737-900ER	Sum
Air China		50		50
China Southern	25	30		55
Sum	25	80		105

Additionally, there are 46 open orders from other Chinese airlines for the B737 family for a total of 151 open orders.

This is a total of 332 open orders for Airbus and Boeing narrowbodies.

Let’s have a look at the actual aircraft and the (small set of) date given to the media by COMAC at the Airshow (Flightglobals headline was “Comac releases C919 specifications”, which was a little bit exaggerated) and compare it to the A320.

	C919	A320
Span	35.8m	34.1m
Length	38.9m	37.6m
Cabin width	3.90m	3.70m

Efficiency is driven largely by two values: aircraft (empty) weight and engine SFC. Another important factor Is the wing efficiency, expressed in L/D (lift-to-drag ratio).

The thrust needed to power the aircraft in level flight is mass*(L/D).

From press releases it is known that the LEAP-X1C for the C919 is designed for a thrust of 30klbf. The 1.3m shorter A320 has a thrust rating of 27klbf, the engines on the 5.6m longer A321 produce 33klbf of thrust at takeoff.

Weight is not given by COMAC, but the span gives a good indication of the weight. Assumed that the aspect ratio of the C919 wing is not that different from a A320 or B737 wing, the wing area is at least the same as the wing of A320. Wing loading at takeoff (takeoff mass/wing area) is - together with the takeoff thrust – the driving factor for the takeoff length. The C919 is designed with hot-and-high airports in Western China in mind, so wing loading should not be far beyond the A320.

L/D could of course be a little bit better, as the A320 wing design is well over twenty years old.

Given all that we can preclude that the C919 won’t have a large weight advantage against the A320. The main driver for efficiency will be the engine. No doubt that the LEAP-X1C will be far better in SFC than the V2500 and the CFM56-5B on the A320. But what if Airbus does the –NEO? And what if the LEAP-X1C is not the “real” LEAP, as discussed here and elsewhere?

Conclusion: for me, the C919 is not a big deal for the next ten to fifteen years – at least technically. If China decides one day that chinese airlines have to buy nothing but Chinese, then it’s a different story – and confined to the Chinese market and close allies.

By then the Chinese aircraft market could very well cool down, as high speed rail eats into air travel wherever a rail line opens.

Update:
There is a good artice on the Aviation Week Website detailing the C919 orders. It's a little bit different than originally reported by Flight International...