China Eastern Airlines has committed to purchase 100 more COMAC C919 narrowbody planes. The airline is the C919’s first customer and currently operates a small number of aircraft.

Deliveries under this new arrangement will commence in 2024, with COMAC delivering five aircraft during the year. China Eastern will take another ten per year from 2025 to 2027, followed by 15 per year from 2028 to 2030. COMAC will deliver the final batch of 20 aircraft in 2031. The airline valued the new contract at about $9.9 billion at list pricing, but underlined that it had purchased the planes at a substantial discount.

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The agreement comes five months after China Eastern conducted the inaugural flight of the Chinese passenger plane, which state-owned COMAC had built to compete with the single-aisle jet families of Airbus SE’s A320neo and Boeing Co’s 737 MAX.

The state-owned carrier with its headquarters in Shanghai is the C919’s first customer; it has purchased five of the aircraft, three of which have already been delivered. Later this year, the other two are anticipated to be delivered.

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According to China Eastern, the new aircraft would expand its fleet at a time when air travel is experiencing a robust rebound after three years of COVID limitations and as the airline prepares to retire a significant portion of its narrow-body aircraft due to ageing.

Between 2020 and 2039, COMAC estimates that about 40,600 new aircraft will be delivered on the global market, with a value of roughly 5.9 trillion dollars. The company’s Chinese C919 and ARJ21 planes could deliver a total of 732 billion dollars worth of products.

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