China, Russia take step
closer to new long-haul jet
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[November 02, 2016]
By Brenda Goh
ZHUHAI,
China (Reuters) - China and Russia took a step closer on Wednesday to
the joint development of a long-haul jet to challenge Boeing <BA.N> and
Airbus, displaying a model of the unnamed plane that would compete with
Western rivals.
State-owned planemakers Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC)
[CMAFC.UL] and United Aircraft Corp (UAC) of Russia said they had
started the hunt to find suppliers, as they presented a mock-up of the
wide-body jet at Airshow China.
Neither firm gave details on financing or technical specifications for
what Western analysts call a politically-driven initiative that will be
difficult to pull off and is likely to carry a high price tag.
China opened the show on Tuesday in the southern city of Zhuhai with a
brief flypast of its J-20 stealth fighter, in a demonstration of
military clout.
Both countries are currently developing smaller narrow-body jets to
compete with the best-selling Airbus and Boeing types.
Guo Bozhi, general manager of COMAC's widebody department, said a 50-50
joint venture based in Shanghai will start operations this year.
First announced in 2014, the project has so far been slow to
materialize. The firms have said they want conduct a maiden flight in
2022 and begin deliveries in 2025 or later.
Western industry analysts consider the target challenging, but more
realistic than recent aircraft programs that sought results in 5-7 years
and came in late.
"A wide-body jet is an extremely complicated product, which will require
a lot of skills (to develop) and require broad industrial knowledge,"
Guo told reporters. "China and Russia each have their own advantages."
Descriptions accompanying the model showed the firms ultimately envision
three variants, based on a basic version that will seat 280 and have a
range of up to 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles).
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The decision to base the venture in Shanghai was a "mutual decision",
Guo said at the event, attended by COMAC Chairman Jin Zhuanglong, UAC's
Chief Executive Yury Slyusar and Russia's Minister of Trade and Industry
Denis Manturov. Guo declined to say how much each party had invested in
the project.
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A global effort to assess potential suppliers is now under way, said
COMAC, which is separately pushing its own C919 narrow-body passenger
jet towards a long-delayed maiden flight, now aimed for the end of 2016
or early 2017.
U.S. firms Honeywell and United Technologies Corporation said on
Wednesday they discussed the China-Russia jet with COMAC officials at
the airshow, without commenting on the nature or subject of the
contacts.
"We will choose suppliers who have rich experience in development, whose
products are competitive globally, and who can continually guarantee
quality from the development stage until the planes go into operation,"
Guo said.
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A key decision will be what engines to use. Industry sources speculate
the jet could use Western engines.
Another potentially tricky issue will be how the work should be divided,
a subject which caused years of wrangling at Europe's Airbus, which
began in 1970 as a consortium of nations and took more than two decades
to make a significant impact.
Though a 50-50 JV, analysts view the Chinese side as being the more
influential in the project.
The firm's Shanghai headquarters tells "where the balance of power is
going to be and that reflects the size of the Chinese domestic market,"
said Sash Tusa, analyst at London-based consultancy Agency Partners.
(Editing by Kenneth Maxwell; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)
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