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The domestic C919 large aircraft project was established in February 2007, and in May 2008, COMAC formally established a project team and began to develop the C919 large passenger aircraft. On May 28, 2023, China's first domestically produced large aircraft C919 successfully flew from Shanghai to Beijing, marking the successful completion of the first commercial flight flight of C919 and the first step of market-oriented operation. It has been 15 years since the project was established and the first delivered aircraft was successfully tested.
On September 28, 2023, as the world's first user of the C919 large passenger aircraft, China Eastern Airlines once again signed a purchase agreement with COMAC to order another 100 C919 large passenger aircraft on the basis of the first batch of 5 in 2021, with a total price of about 9.9 billion US dollars, which marks the largest single order for the C919 large passenger aircraft so far. Delivery and operations are in full swing.
On the evening of April 26, Air China announced that it had signed an agreement with COMAC to purchase 100 C919 aircraft from the latter, and the order was planned to be delivered in batches from 2024 to 2031. So far, this is the second domestic airline to place an order for 100 domestic C919 aircraft at one time.
According to the latest list price provided by COMAC, the total base price of the 100 C919 aircraft to be purchased this time is about 10.8 billion US dollars. After fair negotiation between the buyer and the seller, COMAC granted the Company a larger price concession for the purchase of the aircraft, so the actual consideration of this transaction was lower than the basic price of the aforesaid aircraft.
The full name of "Air China" is Air China Limited. According to Qichamao, Air China Co., Ltd. was established on March 27, 2006, with a registered capital of 1,620,079.2 million yuan, and the legal representative is Ma Chongxian. The company's business scope includes: international, domestic scheduled and irregular air passenger, cargo, mail and baggage transportation business; domestic and international business flight business; aircraft management business; aircraft maintenance; Inter-airline business agency, etc.
The full name of "COMAC" is Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China. According to Qichamao, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China was established on March 28, 2008 with a registered capital of 5,010,110,000 yuan, and the legal representative is He Dongfeng. The company's business scope includes: design, development, production, modification, flight test, sales, maintenance, service, technology development and consulting services for civil aircraft and related products; leasing and financial services related to the production and sale of civil aircraft.
From the "C919 large aircraft won another 100 large orders", look back at the development of domestic large aircraft:
- Definition of large aircraft
In the aviation industry, "Big Aircraft" is not its original technical term, nor is it an international term. In the domestic aviation market, the "large aircraft" originated from the "large aircraft project demonstration team" commissioned by the State Council by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2003.
After years of development, the term "large aircraft" has been generally defined as a transport aircraft with a total take-off volume of more than 100 tons, including passenger aircraft, cargo aircraft and military transport aircraft.
Up to now, the mainland's large aircraft family includes the C919 civil aircraft, the Y-20 "Kunpeng" and the AG-600 "Kunlong" amphibious aircraft.
-- The development of China's domestic large aircraft has been full of twists and turns
Large aircraft are a direct reflection of the overall level of the national aviation industry and even the entire industrial system. As early as 1970, the mainland began to develop the Y-10 model of the large aircraft, but due to factors such as the technical level at that time, the Y-10 plan was completely terminated in 1986; On May 5, 2017, China's domestically produced large aircraft C919 successfully made its first flight, marking that mainland China has become the fourth country or group in the world (after the United States, Europe and Russia) to have the ability to independently manufacture large trunk airliners. With the further development of Continental's aviation manufacturing industry, it is expected to break the long-term monopoly of Boeing and Airbus in the future.
——Large aircraft industry chain: the industrial chain is long and complex
From the perspective of the industrial chain as a whole, the industrial chain structure of the large aircraft industry is complex, involving a large number of industries and miscellaneous types, and the overall complexity of the industrial chain is relatively high.
Focusing on the manufacturing link in the midstream of the industry, the highest value content of large aircraft is the fuselage part, which can account for 30%-35% of the value, in addition, the value of airborne equipment and aero engines account for 25%-30% and 20%-25% respectively. [x1]
——C919 integrates advanced technology at home and abroad
In the project of C919 large passenger aircraft, COMAC adheres to the development guiding ideology of "China designs and completes aircraft-level system integration, faces global bidding, and gradually improves localization", and builds a C919 construction system that radiates the world. At present, COMAC's C919 project has a total of 124 suppliers around the world, among which China's Aviation Industry Corporation is the core supplier of COMAC.
Zhang Yujin, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of COMAC, said that the C919 large aircraft will speed up production expansion and seize market share. The annual production capacity is planned to reach 150 aircraft in the next five years. In 2024, it is expected that the C919 production capacity will continue to gradually expand and grow steadily, so as to achieve "how fast and good" production. At the same time, it is planned to invest tens of billions of yuan in three to five years to expand production capacity. From this point of view, the large-scale commercial use of domestic C919 aircraft is no longer far away.
According to the analysis of the brokerage research report, C919 is expected to enter the global market of trillions of yuan in the future and is expected to be exported to other countries. According to the AVIC Securities Research Report, referring to Air China's disclosed pricing, that is, 108 million US dollars per aircraft, assuming that the exchange rate is 1 US dollar = 7 yuan, the market space of C919 is expected to be 279.72 billion yuan - 446.04 billion yuan in 2024-2030. It is estimated that from 2030 to 2040, with the basic maturity of the whole industry chain, the basic improvement of aircraft operation and supporting maintenance capabilities, and the gradual increase of market share, domestic large aircraft are also expected to usher in a golden age.
Prospective Economist APP Information Group
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