Archive for the 'ARJ21' Category

The Chinese government has officially approved the launch of China Commercial Aircrafts, which will manufacture large passenger planes. The plan is to have jets designed and built in China rolling off an assembly line by 2020.

Asian airlines are expected to buy nearly 10,000 new planes by 2025, with more than 2,200 of those going to Chinese airlines.

China has acquired the needed technical expertise by cooperating with Boeing and Airbus. China Aviation Industries Corporation (AVIC-I) produces components for Boeing’s 747 and 787 wide-bodies and operates a final assembly line for the Airbus A320.

China has already received more than 100 0rders for the 70-passenger regional jet ARJ21 and will set up a sales subsidiary for the ARJ21 in the United States.

True, Chinese aircraft must meet the Department of Transportation’s stringent safety criteria before they’ll be allowed to fly in the United States, and there is some question as to how long it will take China to meet these standards although every manufacturer in the world has had to go through this process and, although lengthy, it can be done.

The biggest problem remaining is the issue of consumer perception.

Chinese airlines are still well below world standard in running their airlines, mo matter who the manufacturer. Worldwide there would be resistance, initially at least, from passengers who simply would not wish to fly on an aircraft built in China in exactly the same way such resistance exists against aircraft built in Russia.
Source: Wired

Not too much should be made of this for in the aviation industry worldwide it is a far too common situation. China may postpone the maiden flight of the ARJ21, or Advanced Regional Jet for the 21st Century, its first passenger jet, by at least four months because of supplier delays.

The flight, scheduled for this month, is now likely to take place in July or even later.

The jet uses parts from Rockwell Collins, Honeywell, Parker Hannifin, United Technologies. and General Electric.

The ARJ21 is the first step in China’s ambition to become a global aircraft maker and capitalize on a domestic market forecast to need as many as 3,400 new planes in the next 20 years.

Chen Jin, vice president of Shanghai-based AVIC I Commercial Aircraft, said ‘We’re still doing assessments, and if the results show that certain things aren’t up to standard, then we may have to delay.’

The ARJ21 will enter a regional-jet market dominated by Bombardier Inc. and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA. The ARJ21 will be priced similarly to the $30 million Embraer 175 jet.

Engineers are still conducting ground tests and experiments on the ARJ21.

Song Yiping, Shanghai-based ARJ21 project manager for Rockwell Collins said, ‘I would guess that some Western-supplied systems may be behind schedule,’ said . ‘There are rumors that one or two suppliers might be delayed.’ Rockwell Collins, which is supplying electronics, is on schedule.

Every component supplier issued a statement saying their deliveries were going to schedule. But as Mandy Rice-Davis famously said, ‘They would say that, wouldn’t they?’

Looking ahead, the Chinese government and its aerospace companies AVIC I and AVIC II plan to invest ‘tens of billions of yuan’ in a company to design and build a 150-seat jetliner within the next decade, AVIC II President Zhang Hongbiao said in Beijing.

According to Boeing, China, the world’s second-largest air travel market, may need as many as 3,400 new planes in the next 20 years.
Source: Bloomberg

China Eastern, the nation’s third-largest carrier, has won official approval to establish a regional airline called Happy Airlines. (The name sounds a bit daft but so did EasyJet and Virgin the first time you heard them.)

The Beijing News reported that China Eastern will invest RMB400 million ($55.8 million) and take 40% in the new company, which will cater to west China’s middle and low-end tourist market.

The rest of the airline will be owned by the state-owned China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I), manufacturer of China’s first home-made passenger airliner ARJ-21.

The new airline will be based in Xi’an Xianyang International Airport in the country’s northwest and expects to hire transport plane pilots from the air force.

The newspaper said there are a handful of Chinese air companies running regional airlines, whose services are in huge demand but suffer from low profitability.

It further said, without elaboration, that China Eastern expects the new company to get beneficial treatment by the government. Beijing wants to boost the economy in the west to tackle unbalanced regional development. Note the illustration has nothing to do with the airline but this might be the image it wants to convey with its name.
Source: Economic Times

There is a clear understanding in Beijing that the best way for China to achieve its ambition in civil aviation — namely to build its own fleet of commercial craft — is to work in partnership with Airbus and Boeing, rather than flying solo or partnering with Russian companies.

Beijing has employed this strategy over the last 20 years or so, working with both Airbus and Boeing to produce components and sub-assemblies as a first step on the long road to manufacturing its own indigenous aircraft.

According to Boeing’s forecast, China will demand many more aircraft over the coming 20 years than Boeing had initially expected in 2006. Boeing predicts that between 2007 and 2026, China will purchase 3,400 new aircraft worth US$340 billion, while Rolls-Royce foresees a demand for 3,100 aircraft over the same period.

As a result, domestic demand on the Chinese aviation industry to excel and deliver domestically built aircraft will only increase. In conjunction with the development of commercial carriers and civil helicopters, skills in the Chinese aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sector are rising rapidly.

AVIC I’s Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Factory operation, which is responsible for the final assembly of the ARJ21 civil craft, will become part of a listed company, AVIC I Commercial Aircraft Corporation (ACAC), whose shares will be sold in China and on foreign stock exchanges.

The operation of Xian Aircraft Industry Corporation will be reorganized as a listed business that will later become the core of a civil manufacturing group encompassing the civil facilities at the Chengdu Aircraft Industry Corporation and Shenyang Aircraft Industry Corporation.

The author of this long and detailed article is Dr Eugene Kogan who is a guest researcher at the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. He is a defense industry analyst with expertise on Russia, Eastern Europe, Israel and China.

The full article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation and is used by Asia Times with permission. To read the quite extensive and very clearly written piece click on Source. It forecasts a seriously important growth period for the China aviation construction industry.
Source: Asia Times

Airplane manufacture is a game for big players or governments. The amount of investment needed is mind-boggling.

Now expectations are growing that China will restructure its sprawling state-owned aircraft makers, Avic I and Avic II. This action is urgently needed to make them more competitive and to pool their resources to develop large commercial jets.

Beijing has yet to publicly comment on government plans for the companies and any restructuring would require a consensus among their bureaucratic overseers, which will be difficult to achieve.

Merging companies mostly means that some individuals lose power and status. Getting them to agree is like pulling teeth.

Local media, however, reported this week that an announcement is likely by March outlining some form of consolidation.

The official China Daily said the move was aimed at ’strengthening the country’s aviation manufacturing capabilities’ and ‘pooling resources to carry out the large commercial airplane project.’

The two groups were created less than a decade ago through the splitting of China’s former aircraft manufacturing monopoly. They both compete and co-operate across a range of aviation-related businesses.

If successful, reorganisation would help Beijing to meet its ambitious target, announced last March, to launch production of large commercial aircraft by 2020.

However, while Avic I recently unveiled the ARJ-21, a locally assembled regional jet with up to 100 seats — and both it and Avic II build 50-seat turboprops — analysts say it is unclear whether individually they have the capacity to develop a competitive large jet.

Restructuring could also prove bureaucratically fraught. The two groups do not have a clear shareholding structure and come under the split authority of China’s state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and its Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence. It is a bureaucratic mess which will need toough decisions to get sorted.
Source: Financial Times