Deliveries of the home-grown airliner billed to take on US, European competitors have been slow, with just three dispatched in the first quarter
Only three C919 deliveries have taken place this year to date – two were issued to China Southern on February 5 and March 2 and one went to Air China on March 27 – with no shipment in January, checks of airline records by the South China Morning Post and data from UK-based aviation consultancy IBA showed.
“It could again be C919s sitting with their wings bare – the CFM Leading Edge Aviation Propulsion (LEAP) engines are not arriving,” said Jason Zheng, an analyst with the Shanghai-based consultancy Airwefly.
“While planes wait for engines, engines wait for key parts like blades.”
CFM is a US-France joint venture established by GE Aerospace and Safran.
“Comac is racing against Boeing, Airbus and even airlines in the unrelenting scramble for access to scarce engines and it may be losing out in allocation,” Zheng said, pointing to a persistent mismatch between record-high demand and a fragile supply chain.
Source: News - South China Morning Post
