Chinese aviation sector readies for takeoff

Airbus was in a celebratory mood earlier this month when it signed a contract to supply China with 100 medium-range jets from the A320 family, worth a total of 8.2 billion euros. Such a meaty contract is not necessarily anything out of the ordinary for an aerospace giant such as Airbus. Most international airlines these days turn to market leaders Airbus or Boeing when they need new planes, and most likely will continue to do so for some time to come. However, the days of their being the only options are numbered: China's aircraft manufacturing market is ready for takeoff.

China is a vast country, and one that's home to a growing middle class that will soon tire of time-consuming train travel. China might have become a world leader in high-speed trains and its train manufacturers are up to speed with their international competitors, but more and more Chinese can now afford air travel and China's air travel market is an attractive one, as the West is well aware.

Trading market access for technology

But China is giving nothing away, instead trading access and share of the domestic market, in time-honored fashion, for technology. While Boeing operates Chinese-American partnerships to manufacture aircraft parts and Airbus has entire planes assembled in China, their hosts are patiently looking and learning. But inevitably there comes a time when the student beings to become as good as the teacher - and that time appears to be approaching. According to estimates, Chinese airlines are set to order aircraft worth $870 billion in the next two decades. But Beijing won't be ordering all of them from abroad.

China's leadership is eager to show the world that not only can the country manufacture complex high-tech products for foreign clients, it can also develop such products for domestic markets and export. The results of its efforts were on display at the Zhuhai Airshow last week, with the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) unveiling two models it hopes will give Western rivals a run for their money: the ARJ21, a short-range jet that can seat up to 90 passengers, and the C919, which can hold up to168 passengers. With these two models, the Chinese will be going head-to-head with their competitors' most popular aircraft, the A320 and the Boeing 737.

Hundreds of pre-orders for Chinese planes

There have been 430 pre-orders for the C919, even though its maiden flight isn't scheduled until next year. The ARJ21 is already in the air, but is still waiting for national and international certification, a process hampered by the number of aircraft parts suppliers involved.

For now, Beijing is unperturbed by the fact that few of these orders come from overseas. Its experience with high-speed trains proved the value of concentrating first on domestic growth and then eyeing international markets. Air travel is booming all over the world, after all. It, no doubt, won't be long before Airbus and Boeing will be competing with a third player.

The rumor at the Zhuhai Airshow was that Comac would be partnering with Russia's United Aircraft to make a wide-body variant of the C919, which could take off within the 10 years. Should the Chinese prove as adept at making aircraft as they are at smartphones, computers and high-speed trains, the prospect that China will soon dominate international civil aviation is not a distant one. Some 100,000 new aircraft are expected to hit the skies in the next 15 years, making it a market worth over $4.5 trillion. China, of course, would like a piece of the pie.

DW columnist Frank Sieren has lived in Beijing for 20 years.