On the eve of National Day, the first small trunk passenger aircraft, C919 passenger aircraft , independently developed by my country, officially obtained the airworthiness certification issued by the State Administration of Civil Aviation of China, and it also means that we can take our own C919 home to celebrate the Spring Festival as early as the end of the year. Once the news was announced, not only the aviation industry was very excited, but many countries even showed their willingness to buy it. In particular, the Minister of Aviation of African countries, Nigeria , publicly stated on the National Day on October 1: In order to expand and enrich the scale of Nigerian Airlines passenger planes, the Nigerian government will consider purchasing China's C919 passenger planes and expand the number of domestic passenger planes to 30 around 2025.
C919 is the first trunk passenger aircraft independently developed and produced by my country. It has just obtained the airworthiness certification and was publicly praised by other countries and is preparing to purchase it. This is a great thing. But judging from the current situation, it is only the Minister of Nigeria's aviation industry that it is publicly stating that it is considering purchasing. If Nigeria really proposes a purchase idea next, my country will also politely refuse its order.
Maybe many people don’t understand that for the new generation of C919, if it can be exported to Africa smoothly, it will be absolutely beneficial for C919 to open more international foreign trade markets and win more purchase orders. So why do we have to refuse the big orders delivered to the door now?
1. C919's existing 815 purchase orders have not yet begun mass delivery. They blindly accept new orders. If they cannot be delivered on time and in volume during subsequent mass production and delivery. According to the aviation procurement standards, if a new aircraft fails to deliver on time and in volume according to the contract, it will compensate the customer for liquidated damages. Generally, it is about 10% of the purchase amount. According to the public price of a C919 of 99 million US dollars, if it cannot be delivered on time, it may not only compensate for the profits, but also pay a lot of costs.
2. The current purchase orders of C919 are 815 aircraft. According to the annual production capacity of C919 announced by COMAC , the initial annual output is only 20 aircraft, and it is expected to increase to 100 aircraft in the future. Even if you have to pay for it, all purchase orders of these 815 aircraft will be delivered for about 10 years.
The Nigerian government has set a condition that it will receive no less than multiple C919 civil aircraft in three years, that is, in 2025. According to the calculation of about 20 B737 passenger aircraft in Nigeria's two major airlines, the number of C919 delivery will reach more than 5 by 2025. The civil aviation procurement standards are the same as many commercial procurement standards. They are delivered to customers in the order order sequence. It cannot be said that Nigerian Airlines is the first overseas customer of C919, so they don’t have to queue up and participate in the delivery. After all, major domestic airlines that purchase C919 have their own plans for new and old aircraft operation and retirement. The delay in delivery has affected the normal operations of major domestic airlines and affected the financial report figures of many domestic airlines.
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3. Nigeria has only two airlines in its country. Although it has a long operating time and Nigeria produces a lot of crude oil, its crude oil processing capacity is quite weak, which also makes the aviation kerosene used by the two major domestic airlines all imported. However, importing high-priced aviation kerosene requires a large amount of foreign exchange reserves, while Nigeria's domestic foreign exchange reserves are quite low, which is simply difficult to meet the normal operation of aviation.
So there is also a fundamental problem with this, that Nigeria's aviation service system is not very sound and immature. For the newly launched C919, if it is exported to airlines that are not very mature in the aviation system, especially the logistics and maintenance system, it would be fine if there is no problem. If any problem occurs, it will become a big problem for C919, and even lead to C919 missing opportunities if it wants to go abroad.
, especially the emergence of C919, directly touched the cakes of the United States Boeing and European Airbus . After all, the benchmark A320neo series and B737MAX series are the most profitable and important passenger aircraft models under Airbus and Boeing. Moreover, the large export of C919 will definitely eat up some of the market share of Airbus and Boeing. According to the current international situation, no one can guarantee that some countries and organizations are causing trouble for C919 in order to squeeze and seize market share.
4. The most important thing is that our country established COMAC and began to develop C919 and CR929 with larger take-off weight and more passenger capacity. The original intention was not to compete with Boeing and Airbus for aviation market share, but to make the Chinese aviation market, which has become the world's second largest aviation market and purchases hundreds of new aircraft every year, be able to use civil aviation passenger aircraft developed and produced by us Chinese, and at the same time provide the army with a certain number of special aircraft platforms.
So for 919, as soon as he obtained the airworthiness certification at this stage, he received praise and procurement intentions from other countries, but this order is not a must for C919.
