China seeks new heights with C929 and C939 jumbo jets, but can it build them without the West?

China has long held ambitions of turning global aviation into an “ABC” market: breaking the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing with the entry of world-class Chinese jets.

That strategy is already well underway, with the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) having already received orders for hundreds of its regional and narrowbody planes, the C909 and C919.

Now, the Chinese aircraft manufacturer is doubling down on plans to expand its fleet to include widebody models - including a self-developed answer to Boeing’s iconic 747 jumbo jet.

Enter the C929 and C939.

COMAC appears laser-focused on producing its own liners capable of undertaking long-haul flights, an endeavour that is not only being driven by market demand but also political and strategic factors.

“There are not too many other engineering products other than big planes that are so visible, so recognisable,” said David Yu, a professor at New York University Shanghai specialising in aviation financing.

“Just like America and Europe, China has many reasons to develop and fly home-grown widebodies that reflect its status and ambitions.”

COMAC was incorporated in 2008 with the mission of realising Beijing’s long-term aviation strategy, with the Chinese leadership convinced that the country needed a complete suite of aircraft to showcase its prowess in advanced manufacturing.

And COMAC executives have stressed that the rapid rollout of the C919 over the past few years only marked the initial steps of a much larger project, as the firm graduates from making single-aisle jets to larger, more sophisticated models.

Wei Yingbiao, the company’s then-deputy general manager, who is now an executive at another state-owned enterprise, reiterated this point once again at a forum in Harbin this past December.

“We are eyeing C929 and C939 widebodies, doing designs,” said Wei. “In addition, we are also envisioning new generations down the road, including electric, hydrogen and hybrid types.”

The C929 will carry up to 440 people and have a range of 12,000 kilometres - about the distance from Shanghai to New York. It will reportedly match the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and Airbus A350 in some performance metrics.

Prototypes for the new jet are currently under development. Domestic suppliers are reportedly due to start shipping some large components, including the first fuselage middle section, for the project in 2027.

The bigger C939, whose specs are still being sketched out, is predicted to be close in size to the Boeing 777 and 747.

Though COMAC has yet to commit to a delivery date, there are hopes that the C929 and C939 can be developed in a shorter time frame than Boeing and Airbus’ first widebodies.

Boeing began work on its first large jet, the iconic 747 series, in the 1960s, as air travel in the US was entering a golden age. The plane was inducted into service in 1970, 13 years after Boeing’s first narrowbody, the 707, was launched.

But Airbus needed less than 10 years – from conception to trial production – to create its first widebody model, the A300, with the plane entering into service in 1974.

The C929 was first conceived in 2016 as a Sino-Russian joint venture project, then known as the CR929. Though Russia later pulled out, some groundwork had already been laid for the project.

“Certainly you don’t have to start all over again, as the CR929 has already provided a foundation,” said a source with COMAC subsidiary Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing, who declined to be named.

“Designing a widebody today is easier than when Boeing first started out in the 1960s. There are mature designs, components and partners that COMAC can look at.”

But analysts warn that COMAC may have to navigate some tough geopolitical headwinds to get its widebodies off the ground. While external tensions are unlikely to deter the company from pursuing its ambitions, they could complicate them.

In particular, the commercial viability of COMAC's new widebodies may hang on the attitudes of foreign watchdogs, with the company unable to rely solely on domestic long-haul travel.

Eric Lin, head of greater China research at UBS in Hong Kong, said there would need to be strong demand for long-haul travel within China and a robust outbound travel market for the C929 and C939 to succeed.

“You need to have a pickup in Chinese outbound travel to amplify that demand,” Lin said. “And that means foreign regulators would need to approve them for international flights.”

China has some purely domestic demand for widebodies, with Chinese carriers deploying them on busy routes such as Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shanghai.

Though the global aviation market has increasingly skewed toward smaller planes in recent years, which has led Western planemakers to cut back on production of jumbo jets, “demand for widebodies will sustain, with long-haul routes unsuitable for small units”, said John Grant, an analyst with British aviation consultancy OAG.

In an August report, Boeing predicted that China’s commercial fleet would double by 2043, meaning it would need to acquire another 1,575 new widebody planes.

COMAC can also depend on support from China’s state-owned airlines, which have placed huge orders for the C919 and will be expected to do so again for future domestic airliners. In November, Air China was confirmed as the launch customer for the C929.

But the international market will still be vital. COMAC could possibly mitigate any delay in certification from Western regulators by first deploying its widebodies domestically and then “start selling overseas to developing countries that are China’s allies and do not require Western endorsement,” Grant said.

He added, though, that this approach would not allow COMAC to make a dent in Airbus and Boeing’s dominant market shares anytime soon.

And the Chinese firm will continue to be beholden to the West in other ways, too.

The C929 and C939 will almost certainly use engines made by Western suppliers, as home-grown alternatives are still not up to standard. This could make them vulnerable to political risks.

The C919’s engine import agreement with Western suppliers including CFM International, a Franco-American joint venture, was signed in 2011. But the global political situation has changed since then, and “the C929 and C939 may face further uncertainties”, said Richard Aboulafia, managing director of the US-based Aerodynamic Advisory.

“China’s aircraft sector may be seen as dual military-civilian by the West going forward - good luck getting approval for using Western engines [for new models] should political and trade environment changes deepen,” Aboulafia said.

NYU Shanghai’s Yu predicted that, even though there are existing design parameters for COMAC to follow as it develops its widebodies, China’s political tensions with the West could set back the company’s production and delivery schedule for the C929, with the C939 further behind.

The best way for Beijing to shield COMAC from potential geopolitical headwinds, Yu suggested, might be to promote the company’s international cooperation.

The two widebody models will be even more reliant on Western tech than the C919, given the complexity of developing such a large model from scratch. But Yu said that dependence could also prove useful in some ways.

“The more Western firms get involved, the more transparent China’s civil aviation programmes will become and the less political blowback from the West there will be,” said Yu, who is also chairman of the China Aviation Valuation Advisors consultancy.

The source with Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing insisted the planemaker could replicate the C919’s domestic-foreign partnerships.

“A majority of the C919’s Western suppliers ... can smoothly transition to the C929 and future programmes,” said the source, adding that many of the companies have been working with COMAC for over a decade.

Representatives from American and European partners including GE Aerospace and Liebherr told the Post at the Zhuhai Airshow in November that the companies would back COMAC's ambitions to make widebody aircraft.

This article was first published on SCMP.