Although the order exceeded 1,200, only 5 aircraft were delivered
C919 is in a "mass production dilemma"
On September 29, 2022, the domestically produced C919 medium-haul trunk passenger aircraft was awarded the type certificate issued by the Civil Aviation of China, which is commonly known as the airworthiness certificate. On November 29 of that year, COMAC, the C919 production plant, also obtained the production license issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which means that COMAC has the ability to deliver C919 in batches.
COMAC obtains C919 production license (November 29, 2022)
On February 15 this year, COMAC delivered the first C919 aircraft of China Eastern Airlines to Singapore to participate in the Singapore Airshow, one of the three major air shows in the world every two years. It was also the first appearance of the C919 at a foreign air show.
The C919 with the registration number B-919A of China Eastern Airlines was displayed at the Singapore Airshow
According to Chinese state media, more than 1,200 C919 orders have been received so far. This figure is composed as follows:
1. In September 2023, COMAC announced at the "Pujiang Innovation" forum held in Shanghai that 1,061 C919 orders have been placed.
2. On September 28, 2023, as the first user of C919, China Eastern Airlines purchased 100 C919s from COMAC again.
3. On the first day of the Singapore Airshow, Tibet Airlines and Henan Aviation Investment signed an order for 40 C919 (high prototypes) with COMAC.
However, under this fruitful order, how many C919s has COMAC delivered? The fact is that COMAC has only delivered the first batch of five C919 aircraft to China Eastern Airlines, the details are as follows:
Among them, only 4 have been put into operation on domestic routes, namely B-919A, B-919C, B-919D, and B-919E. At 9:28 a.m. on March 2, the fifth C919 with registration number B-919F took off from Runway 5 of Pudong Airport and carried out the transfer flight MU2999 to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. This marks the delivery of all five C919s under China Eastern's first purchase contract.
COMAC delivered the 5th C919 (registration number B-919F) to China Eastern Airlines
It is reported that COMAC's sixth C919 has also left the factory and is undergoing testing and verification flights, but there is no exact delivery date yet.
Such an unbearable delivery of the C919 not only disappointed the Chinese people, but also made them suspicious. If the delivery rate is carried out at this rate, when will the order for 1,200 aircraft be delivered? What happened to the C919? What happened to COMAC?
I remember that when China purchased a large number of Airbus aircraft in recent years, the Chinese people still heard the question of "not buying Chinese C919, but buying foreign A320". If it weren't for people of insight to explain, the C919 production capacity could not meet the needs of domestic airlines, and the people's excitement would be difficult to subside. In other words, people have to accept the fact that the current production capacity of the C919 is indeed inferior to that of Airbus and Boeing. However, even if COMAC's production capacity is low now, it will not be more than a year to deliver 5 C919 aircraft, right?
Airbus A320
I still remember that when the C919 first came out, many people were worried about the hidden danger that the localization of the C919 aircraft was too low and was controlled by others. Today, the "sword of Damocles" still hangs over our heads, but it does not come from commercial competition, but from political considerations in the United States and the West. On the one hand, China is accelerating the localization process of C919, and the domestic production rate has increased from less than half to 60%. On the other hand, companies and businessmen in the United States and Western countries are also worried about the loss of the C919 cake in the future. Overseas suppliers have asked COMAC to increase orders for products, and said that they will supply them in a timely manner. In addition, COMAC has stockpiled a sufficient number of "overseas products" for mass production of the C919, such as the aircraft power unit LAEP-1C engine, and COMAC has purchased more than 1,000 sets from Safran, and most of them have been delivered. Unless there are politically induced "sanctions", the supply of non-domestic components for mass production of the C919 is still guaranteed. In other words, the current delay in the delivery of C919 is not due to the untimely supply of imported components.
So, how did the embarrassing situation of "more than 1,200 orders and only 5 aircraft delivered" presented by the C919 come about? How should the C919 fall into this "mass production dilemma"?
First of all, unlike established models such as the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, the C919 is a new type of aircraft. Some faults or unsafe hazards will be exposed during its commercial operation. For airlines chasing commercial profits, aircraft will go through a phase known as "safe operations". The safety operation phase is also known as the "break-in period", during which aircraft failures will be detected and eliminated in a timely manner, and effective measures and troubleshooting methods will be found. Due to the high failure rate of the aircraft at this stage, it will even seriously affect the operation of the aircraft. Therefore, the number of aircraft that airlines usually put into operation in the safe operation phase will not be very large, and most airlines take a wait-and-see attitude before paying real money, wait and see the problems that occur in the operation of the aircraft, and more importantly, the results of solving these problems. In other words, China Eastern Airlines, which bears the brunt of the C919, has become the person who is watched, and of course the person who "eats crabs".
The C919 is put into safe operation
Secondly, the indicator to measure whether it can pass the safe operation stage is the "failure thousand-hour rate", that is, the ratio of "failure maintenance time" to "operation time plus maintenance time", multiplied by 1000, and the consensus of the international civil aviation community on the "failure thousand-hour rate" is 60. For example, the C919 encountered engine and thrust reverser failures just after it was put into operation, resulting in a rapid increase in the "1,000-hour failure rate". For example, in 2016, when the ARJ21 aircraft produced by COMAC was put into operation, the "1,000-hour failure rate" reached hundreds until 2022, and it did not reach 60 until 2022. Once the aircraft has passed the "safe operation" phase, it can enter the stage known as "scale operation". At this point, airlines can put a large number of aircraft into the commercial operation of flights.
COMAC officially announced that the ARJ21 aircraft has entered large-scale operation
Given that the C919 is still in the "safe operation" stage, and referring to the "safe operation" time experienced by the ARJ21, it will take at least 5 years from the first delivery of the aircraft to "safe operation". At that time, the C919 will be ready for mass delivery. In other words, at present, COMAC has not started mass production of C919 at all. This seems to explain why the C919 "although the order exceeds 1200, only 5 aircraft are delivered", and it seems to see the confusion of the C919 in the "mass production dilemma......
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