Game Of Frames

CHINA, RUSSIA – AND JAPAN – CHALLENGE THE DUOPOLY Boeing and Airbus have spent decades cementing their duopoly in the commercial jet market. Now, China and Russia are bent on breaking that stranglehold with new widebody and single-aisle transports. Can they do it and how long will it take?

Ask any executive from Boeing or Airbus whether they see a challenge to their market dominance from the planned production of a new widebody passenger jet in the current project partnership between China and Russia and the response is invariably the same: ‘Yes, absolutely… one day far, far away’.

The contender is the CR929, being developed by the China-Russia Commercial Aircraft International Corporation (CRAIC), a joint venture between the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) and Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC).