China, Russia near deal for wide-body aircraft

Russian and Chinese aircraft manufacturers are preparing to cooperate to help China meet soaring demand for new jumbo jets without kowtowing to industry heavyweights Airbus and Boeing.

Aviation industry officials on the sidelines of the recent Zhuhai Air Show in southern China told Caixin that the Chinese and Russian governments have agreed to cooperate on jumbo jet development, including wide-body aircraft design, research and manufacturing. Negotiations between aviation sector representatives from the two sides are still under way, but officials said they expect a final agreement to be announced next year.

Key parties for the potential deal would be state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (Comac) and Russia's state-owned United Aircraft Corp. (UAC)

Not invited to the negotiating table were the companies that now dominate the world's jumbo jet manufacturing industry – Europe's Airbus and America's Boeing. These companies are currently among the only choices available to Chinese airlines looking to modernize or expand their fleets of long-distance, big-load aircraft.

Chinese airlines currently fly Airbus A340, A350 and A380 jets, as well as Boeing 777 and 787 models. These wide-body aircraft are commonly reserved for long distance flight and can accommodate at least 200 passengers, and as many as 800. They're also more fuel- and cost-efficient to operate than smaller passenger jets.

Chinese airlines currently fly about 170 jumbo jets combined, but will need to add at least 1,000 new, wide-body aircraft over the next 20 years to meeting rising demand for long-distance air travel, according to a Boeing report.

Some demand for new aircraft is expected to be met by China's homegrown C919, a narrow-body family of Comac passenger jets currently under development. These models are designed carry between 158 and 174 passengers, thus rivaling the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 medium-range jets.

The first, air-worthy C919 model is expected to take its first test flight in late 2015. Meanwhile, Comac has made it to the research stage of a project for an all-new wide-body aircraft that's currently called C929.

The production plan of C929 was first mentioned in 2009, when Shanghai officials released an aviation industry development report describing city plans to expand aviation manufacturing capacity to 230 aircraft annually, including 150 C919 and 30 C929 aircraft.

More recently, on November 7, the French news agency Agence France Presse said C929 production would likely begin in 2023. According to a Chinese aviation executive quoted in the report, Chia wants to begin the wide-boy aircraft production within 10 years.

So far, however, the C929 is only on paper. But China is keen to develop its own, wide-body passenger aircraft to compete with the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380. And that's apparently why Comac officials have been eyeing a cooperation agreement with Russia.