China built the C919. So why are its biggest airlines still ordering A320s?
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In Brief: The COMAC C919 was developed as China's alternative to the Airbus A320neo family and Boeing 737 MAX, the narrowbody aircraft that carry most passengers, operate most departures and underpin the workhorse of airline growth. With Airbus and Boeing effectively sold out into the next decade, airlines across emerging markets are looking for alternatives. China's three largest carriers have backed the programme with 305 firm C919 orders, yet they continue buying Airbus, with China Eastern ordering 101 A320neo family aircraft after receiving just one of ten C919s it expected in the first half of 2025. Their behaviour suggests the industry's next question is no longer whether the aircraft works, but whether COMAC can deliver enough aircraft, consistently enough, for airlines to plan future growth around it. This piece analyses that the answer depends less on the aircraft itself than on the industrial system behind it: production scale, certification, financing and support.
Why are China's biggest airlines still buying Airbus?
The Commercial Aircraft Cooperation of China Ltd (COMAC) C919 was developed as China's alternative to the Airbus A320neo family and Boeing 737 MAX, the narrowbody aircraft that carry most passengers and underpin airline growth. For airlines across Southeast Asia, Africa and Central Asia, these aircraft determine how quickly new routes can be launched, frequencies increased and capacity added. China's three largest airlines therefore provide the clearest indication of how the programme is being evaluated in practice. Their fleet decisions are less about choosing between aircraft than balancing today's capacity requirements with tomorrow's industrial ambitions.
Figure 1: The Chinese big three, C919 firm orders against fresh A320-family orders since May 2025
Source: Airlineratings.com, September 2023; AirInsight, May 2026; South China Morning Post, September 2025; CGTN, September 2024; Air Data News, July 2024. China Eastern's 2026 order for 101 A320neo family aircraft cited the shortfall in COMAC's ramp as the reason. China Southern's further A321neo positions are arranged through CALC and CDB Leasing.
The two orders serve different purposes. A C919 order secures a place in China's new aircraft programme. An Airbus order secures aircraft the airline already knows it can finance, operate, support and receive on contracted delivery dates. Fleet planners are ultimately measured on whether that capacity arrives.
Orders record demand, while deliveries record production. The gap between orders and deliveries matters because orders can be revised, deferred or announced years before an aircraft enters service, while deliveries show what the production system has actually produced. COMAC's published production targets, compared with actual deliveries, provide a clearer picture of where the programme currently stands.
Figure 2: Annual C919 deliveries, COMAC target versus actual
Source: Reuters, September 2025; Bloomberg, September 2025; Flight Global, January 2025; Air Data News, March 2026; COMAC supplier conference, Xi'an, March 2025; airline financial filings; Avio Space, June 2026. The 2025 target was revised three times, from 30 in January to 75 in March, then cut to 25 in September. Actual deliveries came in at 15.
China Eastern expected ten C919 deliveries in the first half of 2025 but received one. In March 2026 it placed an order for 101 A320neo family aircraft, reinforcing the role Airbus continues to play in supporting its fleet growth while COMAC ramps production. The sequence matters more than either number in isolation because it shows how airlines respond when expected deliveries do not materialise. Missing aircraft cannot simply be replaced from the secondary market or pulled forward from Airbus' already full production queue. Delayed deliveries become delayed routes, delayed capacity and delayed revenue.
What does China's delivery experience actually tell us about COMAC?
Large order books attract attention because they demonstrate demand. For airlines, however, the more immediate question is how quickly those orders become aircraft in service. Production rate determines how long airlines wait, how quickly support networks develop, how financing matures and how residual values become established. Almost the entire C919 backlog sits with Chinese state airlines and state-linked lessors, making production growth a more useful indicator of commercial maturity than backlog alone.
The comparison therefore extends beyond the aircraft itself. It also includes the production, financing and support systems that allow airlines to introduce large fleets with confidence.
Figure 3: Actual annual narrowbody deliveries by programme, 2023 to 2025
Source: COMAC figures per Avio Space, June 2026 and Leeham News, March 2025. Airbus 2023 per preliminary delivery data reported January 2024; 2025 per Simple Flying, January 2026, comprising 15 A319neo, 205 A320neo and 387 A321neo; 2024 estimated at approximately 70 per cent of 766 total deliveries reported by Airbus, January 2025. Boeing 737 MAX figures estimated from total commercial delivery totals reported by Manufacturing Dive, January 2026 and Simple Flying, February 2026, with quarterly programme mix.
The production gap is immediately visible. Airbus delivered roughly forty A320neo family aircraft for every C919 in 2025. More importantly, airlines broadly understand how many aircraft Airbus can deliver and when. That confidence has been built through years of consistent production and matters as much as production volume itself when airlines plan long-term fleet growth.
The forward picture is what an airline signing a twelve-year fleet plan is actually buying, and here the divergence between stated ambition and independent assessment is wide.
Figure 4: Run-rate output against stated 2029 production targets
Source: IBA Group, September 2025; Airbus production guidance, November 2025; Boeing SEC Form 10-Q, Q3 2025 and Form 8-K, Q2 2025; COMAC supplier conference, Xi'an, March 2025.
Every fleet plan is ultimately a judgement about future production. COMAC believes it can raise output dramatically over the next four years. Independent forecasts suggest a slower trajectory. Beyond just a forecasting disagreement, that gap determines whether an airline commits future growth to the programme.
Why hasn’t the Airbus and Boeing delivery backlog created a breakthrough for the C919?
Airbus and Boeing have effectively sold out the rest of this decade. Aviation Consulting Firm IBA estimates meaningful A320neo family and 737 MAX delivery positions are largely unavailable until around 2033. That should create the ideal opening for a third narrowbody manufacturer. COMAC's pitch is built around exactly that opportunity. Yet airlines continue waiting for Airbus and Boeing rather than moving at scale to the C919.
The delivery shortage created an opportunity. It did not remove the reasons airlines hesitate to become early adopters. Before a foreign airline can place the C919 into commercial service it must secure a firm order, arrange financing, obtain regulatory validation of the Chinese type certificate and establish operational support. Each requirement adds time, cost and uncertainty before the first aircraft ever enters service.
COMAC's international experience reflects those hurdles. The manufacturer spent 2024 demonstrating the C919 across Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia, but the tour produced no orders. Exploratory discussions have also been reported with Garuda Indonesia, SCAT Airlines in Kazakhstan and Angkor Air in Cambodia, yet none has progressed beyond early-stage interest.
The programme's only confirmed international customer remains GallopAir of Brunei, a start-up backed by Chinese investors rather than an established airline replacing part of an existing narrowbody fleet. Delivery also depends on Brunei validating the CAAC type certificate, making the programme's international footprint still closely tied to Chinese capital and government relationships rather than broad commercial adoption.
Certification remains one of the largest barriers to wider adoption. The CAAC issued the C919 type certificate in September 2022, but EASA's executive director has indicated validation is unlikely before 2028–2031 and FAA certification has not been formally pursued. The consequences extend well beyond access to European airspace. Without EASA or FAA validation, many Western lessors cannot finance the aircraft, international insurance options remain more limited and residual values remain harder to establish.
Certification alone, however, does not complete the business case. Airlines also need confidence that they can finance the aircraft, train crews, obtain spare parts, access maintenance capability and receive deliveries when promised. Those decisions are made years before the first aircraft enters service, making the surrounding ecosystem almost as important as the aircraft itself.
The industry's response to the delivery shortage illustrates that distinction. Airlines have extended leases, retained older aircraft and delayed expansion before becoming first movers on the C919. The shortage has increased the value of earlier delivery positions, but it has not outweighed the certainty provided by established production, financing and support networks.
Farnborough 2026 reinforced that behaviour. Airbus and Boeing entered the show with a combined backlog approaching 17,000 aircraft, yet the largest transaction was not an airline turning to a new manufacturer. SMBC Aviation Capital instead ordered 200 narrowbodies from Airbus and Boeing for delivery in the first half of the 2030s. Faced with scarce delivery positions, the market chose to secure future access to the existing manufacturers rather than shift demand to a third one. COMAC exhibited the C909, C919 and C929 but announced no major narrowbody customer.
Industry commentary pointed in the same direction. Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury acknowledged there was "room for others" while arguing that certification and dependence on Western suppliers would slow COMAC's international expansion. Malaysia Aviation Group's Bryan Foong said he expected the C919 to obtain EASA certification eventually but preferred to wait rather than become an early adopter. Ryanair's Michael O'Leary discussed the aircraft primarily as leverage in negotiations with Boeing rather than as an imminent fleet choice. Interest in the aircraft is becoming more common. Firm commitments remain limited.
COMAC's overseas progress has instead come through the smaller C909 regional jet. Air Cambodia's July 2026 agreement for twenty aircraft became the first sizeable order for a Chinese-built airliner by a foreign flag carrier. Like VietJet's earlier C909 deliveries, the transaction combined Chinese financing, government support and regulatory cooperation. That export model has proved capable of placing regional aircraft. It has yet to produce comparable momentum for the C919.
The Airbus and Boeing backlog has unquestionably created an opening for a third manufacturer. What it has not yet done is persuade airlines to exchange certainty for earlier access. Until the C919 offers predictable deliveries, broader certification, mature financing and a global support network, airlines appear more willing to wait longer for Airbus or Boeing than become the programme's first large international narrowbody operator.
What would an airline need to believe before ordering the C919?
Therefore four things would be needed for an airline before they would order the C919
1. Regulatory acceptance is the first condition, and it does not arrive in instalments. An operator whose regulator has not validated the CAAC certificate cannot place the aircraft on its operating certificate at all, cannot train crews against it, and cannot sell a seat on it. For a carrier with European or North American ambitions, an EASA timeline of 2028 to 2031 and an unpursued FAA pathway remove the aircraft from that part of the network for the life of the current fleet plan. The question is not whether validation will eventually occur, but whether it occurs inside the window in which the aircraft is expected to earn.
2. Financing and residual value are the next hurdle. Lessors fund aircraft because they believe they can lease or sell them again years later. That judgement depends on a deep secondary market, proven residual values and broad regulatory acceptance. Those conditions are still emerging for the C919.
3. Along with aircraft, airlines also buy training capacity, engineering capability, spare parts, simulator access and recovery support when aircraft go technical. The A320 and 737 ecosystems already exist almost everywhere. COMAC is still building its own beyond China.
4. The fourth condition sits largely outside COMAC's control. The C919 relies on the CFM LEAP-1C engine, produced by GE Aerospace and Safran, making exports subject to US export controls. In June 2025 those exports were suspended for roughly a month before trade negotiations restored them. The interruption had little immediate impact at today's production rate, but it demonstrated that future delivery schedules can still be affected by policy decisions outside China. Until propulsion is domestically substituted or supply becomes insulated from export controls, airlines must also consider that additional source of delivery uncertainty.
Closing Thoughts
The C919 has passed the point at which certification was the binding constraint. CAAC approval was granted in September 2022, the aircraft is in scheduled revenue service with three major carriers, and its technical adequacy is not seriously contested. What has not been established is industrial capability, meaning the ability to produce at a rate that supports fleet planning, absorb disruption without losing rate, and carry a global support, financing and secondary market apparatus alongside the airframe. China's own airlines have positioned themselves accordingly, backing the programme with the largest order book any new commercial aircraft has held while contracting Airbus for the capacity their networks actually require.
The next phase of the programme will be measured by evidence rather than announcements. A second final assembly line, sustained year-on-year production growth, a commercially financed foreign airline delivery and meaningful progress towards EASA validation would each remove one of today's constraints. Together they would show that the programme is evolving from a successful national aircraft project into a globally competitive industrial platform. Until then, China's own airlines remain the best guide to how executives should read the C919: support its long-term future, but continue planning today's growth around aircraft that can be delivered with confidence.
Author’s Note and About Aeraltus
This analysis is based on public information including public statements, OEM statistics, OEM market projections and analysis, and Industry announcements. Aeraltus does not hold a position in COMAC, Airbus, Boeing or any related entity
Aeraltus produces structural aviation analysis and intelligence on emerging markets across Asia and Africa.
Custom analysis is available for investors, strategy teams, lessors and corporate development groups. Contact info@aeraltus.com.
For full list of sources see PDF attached above.
