According to reports, on July 1, three airlines, China Southern Airlines, Air China and China Eastern Airlines , successively announced the purchase of Airbus aircraft . It is reported that this time it is a collective purchase by the three major domestic airlines, starting from In terms of purchase quantity, China Eastern Airlines purchased 100 aircraft, China Southern Airlines and Air China purchased 96 aircraft respectively.
Calculated, the cumulative Airbus orders of the three major airlines have reached 292, and the total purchase price has exceeded 240 billion yuan. It can be said to be a big order. As soon as the news of
came out, it immediately aroused people's attention and heated discussion. In addition to some netizens who were curious about why the three domestic airlines collectively purchased Airbus instead of and Boeing , some people also questioned: Obviously domestically produced large-scale airlines The aircraft C919 is about to obtain the airworthiness certificate . Why don’t these three major airlines purchase domestically produced aircraft?
So, which Airbus model are purchased by these three major airlines? Why not buy Boeing?
Through the announcements of the three major airlines, the Airbus A320NEO model was purchased. This is a model that completed its first flight in 2014. Because of its high cost performance, it was quickly welcomed by the global market after being launched. It has been the most popular model among single-aisle passenger aircraft in the world for many years. one.
The current model that competes with it internationally is Boeing's classic model 737MAX. However, due to the frequent accidents of Boeing aircraft in recent years, the sales volume of Airbus A320NEO has been declining in the past three years. It is higher than Boeing 737MAX. From a safety perspective, Airbus's accident rate is also lower than Boeing's.
Therefore, this time, my country's three major aviation centralized procurement of passenger aircraft finally confirmed the large-scale purchase order after a series of considerations. Industry insiders said that because it is a centralized procurement form and the order is large, therefore, In this transaction, the discounts obtained by the three major airlines are also very large. Simply put, it is the most cost-effective purchase of aircraft at present.
Of course, if so many aircraft are purchased at one time, Airbus will not deliver them all at once. According to the announcements of the three major airlines, the latest delivery time agreed between them and Airbus is before 2027, and the delivery time of the first batch of orders is unified to 2024. In this way, the number of new aircraft replaced every year is actually Limited. Although it seems like a lot of purchases are being made, the demand for passenger aircraft from the three major airlines is still far from saturated.
Speaking of which, my country’s domestic large aircraft C919 is about to be launched. According to news some time ago, it is expected that the C919 will be officially airworthy before the end of this year. China Eastern Airlines, which purchased Airbus this time, will be the first domestically owned C919 passenger aircraft. route airlines.
As for the design of the C919, its positioning is to benchmark against the most popular models in the world, this time the Airbus A320NEO, which is purchased by the three major aviation companies, and the 737MAX, which is gradually losing market share by Boeing.
So, since the C919 is coming, why don’t the three major airlines buy domestically produced large aircraft?
To put it simply, it is related to the fact that C919 has not yet obtained the airworthiness certificate, and has not officially entered the mass production period, and has not officially launched route airworthiness.
Although the design of the C919, its comfort, safety and other aspects have been compared with professional data before, and the overall score is better than that of Airbus A320NEO and Boeing 737MAX, however, compared with these two models, it has already gained international reputation. Different from its rich airworthiness experience, although the C919 completed its first flight early, it did not actually carry passengers.
Therefore, after it officially flies, from its advent to being recognized, to continuous orders, and large-scale mass production, it will continue to meet the needs of domestic airlines and other international airlines for new aircraft. At present, at least It will take about 10 years. Therefore, in the short term, the C919 will not be able to replace Boeing and Airbus and seize their order market.
You must know that although the business of airlines has generally been sluggish due to the epidemic in the past two years, it has now entered a stage of gradual recovery, and judging from the data, long before the epidemic, that is, before 2019 , my country’s civil aviation demand for new aircraft has reached about 400 aircraft every year.
With the development in the future, the demand will continue to increase every year in the future, and the C919 relies on imports for many parts such as engines. For example, due to the use of American and European engines, there was a time when the C919 was not put into mass production due to sanctions. Continuous postponement.
Therefore, considering the uncertainties of the C919, unless it will not be restricted by sanctions in the future and can be mass-produced smoothly, it will be possible to meet market demand. Otherwise, even if there is an order, the aircraft will not be delivered on time. Not a small problem. Therefore, on the whole, it is normal for the three major domestic airlines to purchase Airbus aircraft this time. There is no need to think that they will not buy domestically produced C919s. To put it bluntly, they cannot deliver even if they want to buy them.
Finally, it needs to be mentioned that due to the epidemic in the past two years, the global economy itself has been "stretching", and this time my country has made a large-scale purchase order to purchase European Airbus aircraft. In fact, this is also in the process of There is another meaning behind this kind of overture and wooing towards Europe. So, again, everything has a reason. Friends, what do you think?
