The C919, the Chinese commercial aircraft, will fly all over the world, but not in the US and EU

According to analysts, it could be years before the first narrow-body passenger jet produced in China is certified by American and European aviation authorities.
In the meantime, however, the C919 will continue to fly both domestically and in other regions, as Beijing continues its efforts to urgently advance its aerospace manufacturing capabilities and compete with Boeing and Airbus.
The aircraft is expected to enter domestic service this spring, after being certified by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) in September.
Before entering commercial service, the C919 will undergo 100 hours of test flights. After a short break for the Lunar New Year holiday, the flight validation process resumed on January 28 with a flight from Shanghai to Nanchang in Jiangxi province.
The C919 manufacturer, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), also has a regional jet – the ARJ21 – which has been in service since 2015, but which has yet to be certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

This is despite the fact that bilateral aviation safety agreements have been made between the two regulators and the CAAC for a certification validation that would allow the export of Chinese-made aerospace products to the US and the EU based on mutual recognition of the certification process. certification.

In particular, regulators will work together to validate the airworthiness of an aircraft design, known as 'type' certification.
“Whether the C919 gets FAA or EASA approval is not a real concern for Comac, as it can be sold and used in many other markets that do not fall under these two jurisdictions,” said Shukor Yusof, founder of the aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
“Of course, anything made in China gets stigmatized, but high-speed trains have proven to be very reliable and safe. Products made in China can be world-class. This also applies to aircraft, although I suspect there will continue to be skepticism about safety issues."

Richard Evans, senior consultant at Ascend by Cirium, said the main market for the C919, designed to compete with Boeing's 737 and Airbus' A320, is China.
“I think the ARJ21 is unlikely to do that, but it is possible that Comac will try to get the C919 certified by EASA or the FAA one day. I don't think it will be a priority though, because presumably it will take a long time to get it,” Evans said.

In a statement released by the CAAC in 2017, China's aviation regulator said it "encourage and support Chinese enterprises to apply for type recognition by the FAA, such as for Comac's ARJ21 and C919." , and “for a bilateral airworthiness document, the most important part is the scope and procedures for mutual recognition”.
"The FAA followed the CAAC on these type certificates for years, because the goal was to validate the respective type certificates, providing technical assistance and experts to Comac and in Shanghai, where they built the aircraft," said Michael Daniel , former FAA certification expert.
The status of the shadowing process between the FAA and CAAC, which involves inspections and audits, has not been publicly updated. Daniel said the pandemic is likely one factor that has slowed the process.
Reuters reported in September that EASA said it had been working on a certification validation process for the C919 with Comac for years, paralleling the work of the CAAC. However, the EU aviation agency has not commented on when the validation process will be completed, according to Reuters.

An FAA spokeswoman referred questions about the status of certification validation for the ARJ21 and C919 to the Chinese government, while EASA did not respond. The CAAC and Comac also did not respond to faxed questions on the state of play of the availability of the ARJ21 and C919 in the US and EU markets.
At the end of last year, Comac delivered the ARJ21 to its first international customer, Indonesian airline TransNusa, partly owned by China Aircraft Leasing Group Holdings.
According to Daniel, Indonesia recognizes Chinese-type certification, without going through the rigorous certification and validation process required by the FAA and EASA.
“Smaller authorities may not have the same resources as larger FAA and EASA organizations and must rely on sampling and/or focused meetings. However, each authority bears the same responsibility for the validation of type certification and supplemental type certification,” said Daniel.

In addition to the obvious geopolitical advantages, Indonesia is also catching up with China economically.
Shukor Yusof, Endau Analytics
Supplemental type certification is issued when an applicant has received FAA approval to modify an aircraft product from its original design.
While safety is the priority for airworthiness certification, the company's ownership and geopolitical influence may also play a role when it comes to selling the planes, according to analysts.
“Indonesia has close ties with China, as seen during Covid, where Sinovac vaccines were supplied by the Chinese. In addition to the obvious geopolitical advantages, Indonesia is also catching up with China economically,” Yusuf said.
In 2021, bilateral trade between China and Indonesia grew 58.6 percent from a year earlier to $124.4 billion, with Chinese exports rising 48.1 percent to $60.7 billion and a 70.1% jump in imports to $63.8 billion, according to official Chinese data.
Indonesia is also China's second largest investment destination in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, after Singapore.

So the C919 won't be flying to the US or Europe anytime soon, but it will be flying to other countries with positive relations with Beijing. The commercial aircraft will fly everywhere, showing Beijing's real power.

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The article The C919, the Chinese commercial aircraft, will fly all over the world, but not in the USA and the EU comes from Economic Scenarios .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/il-c919-laereo-commerciale-cinese-volera-in-tutto-il-mondo-ma-non-in-usa-e-ue/ on Sun, 12 Feb 2023 07:00:32 +0000.