Last week, China Eastern Airlines launched a C919 aircraft carrying a full complement of passengers from Shanghai to Beijing — a major milestone for the Commercial Aviation Corp of China (COMAC).
Regarding this, Mr. Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing Corporation (USA) said on June 1 that he did not believe that this was a sign of the end of the monopoly held by this company and its rival Airbus (from France, Germany, Spain, and the UK), Reuters reported.
Mr. Dave Calhoun speaks at the Boeing factory in Washington on January 31.
Calhoun said the C919 is a “good plane,” but it will take “a long time” for COMAC to build the production capacity needed to meet the needs of Chinese airlines. He said that even if COMAC could increase the number of C919s, it would still lag behind Boeing and Airbus, The New York Times reported.
How many orders does China's first domestically produced passenger plane have?
“[Having] three suppliers in a global market that is growing at this rate and scale is not the scariest thing. I think it's silly to worry too much about it,” Mr. Calhoun added.
Instead, Boeing’s CEO said the company needs to focus on the competition now and position itself to “win that technology race.” He added that China remains “our friend, our customer,” but that business could be adjusted due to US-China geopolitical tensions.
Asked about reports that Airbus was considering launching a new version of the A220 – a move that would challenge Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX 8 – Mr Calhoun replied: “That doesn’t bother me.”
Calhoun said that regaining 50% of Boeing’s market share in narrowbody orders from Airbus is not important. Instead, Calhoun said the biggest reason Boeing has lost market share over the past four years is because of its inability to deliver planes due to supply chain issues.
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