As long as you go out and fly, you will find that the aircraft you are flying in is either an Airbus or a Boeing. This is because Boeing and Airbus have almost a monopoly of 99% of the global market share. Take 2019 as an example, Airbus occupies 48.32% of the mainland market, while Boeing occupies 46.95%.
But lately, Boeing has smashed its own job. According to the Global Times, China's state-owned aircraft manufacturer has been working on the development of commercial jets for more than a decade. However, their efforts to market to foreign customers as an alternative to the American and European giants Boeing and Airbus have been slow.
But recently, Boeing had its own problems and ruined its own jobs, and the emergency hatch of a 737 MAX plane operated by Alaska Airlines fell off, an incident that made China's large aircraft begin to become attractive.
It is understood that a Boeing 737 MAX 9 passenger plane of Alaska Airlines was involved in an accident shortly after takeoff, and then made an emergency landing. According to US media reports, the passenger plane lost a hatch on its return, and photos taken by passengers showed a huge hole in the bulkhead of the plane. The plane was in a depressurized emergency minutes before it successfully landed, and audio recordings between the crew and air traffic controllers proved to be true.
That night, Alaska Airlines said in multiple statements that the Boeing 737 MAX 9 with flight number 1282 was flying from Portland to Ontario, California, that day. Although the door flew away, fortunately, the plane landed safely, with a total of 174 passengers and 6 crew members on board. To prevent similar incidents, the company has grounded its fleet of 65 Boeing 737 MAX 9s.
In fact, this is not the first time that the Boeing 737 MAX has had an accident.
Between October 2018 and March 2019, two fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft were the victims of two fatal crashes of Indonesian Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines in just five months, killing a total of 346 people.
As a result of this series of accidents, the aircraft experienced a global grounding period of nearly two years, and it was not until November 2020 that it was approved for resumption of flights in the United States. The crisis has reportedly cost Boeing up to $20.7 billion.
Now that Boeing is in operation but there are still accidents, the third option besides the Boeing and Airbus accidents seems reasonable. In May last year, the continental's C919 large aircraft has been officially put into commercial flight, as of September last year, the continent's C919 orders have exceeded 1,200, and its Middle East Airlines spent $71 billion to buy 100 aircraft.
It is true that because China's large aircraft is still in the novice stage and has no experience in being used, it will take more than ten years of flight time and hundreds of aircraft trial operation to see the true strength of China's large aircraft. However, when aircraft such as Boeing cannot protect the safety of air passengers, China's large aircraft have become an additional best option.
So far, COMAC has not had the production capacity to rival that of its established rivals. However, Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary said the short-term benefit of COMAC's addition to Western airlines is that it meets the demand for aircraft from Chinese airlines.
Not only that, but in the long run, COMAC has also made progress. Although China's big planes did not sell a large number of orders to global airlines, they secretly selected some smaller, less well-known airlines as partners.
Indonesia's low-cost airline, for example, ordered 30 smaller ARJ21 regional airliners in 2021, becoming the first foreign airline to sign a contract with COMAC. Last year, Brunei's Qiji Airlines became an overseas customer of COMAC's C919 aircraft, and the establishment of these partnerships is an opportunity for COMAC.
The road is step by step, the strength of China's large aircraft C919 will also be slowly proven in practice, over the years Airbus and Boeing occupy nearly 100% of the market share in the international community, it is time to need fresh blood to come in, although China's large aircraft can not be fully replaced by Boeing Airbus in a short period of time, but China's large aircraft is gradually penetrating, the future market share will be more and more.