Global airlines may consider adding recent and potentially cheaper Chinese-made C919 aircraft to their current fleet, which consists mainly of planes from two world-renowned players: Airbus and Boeing.
Adding to the list of airlines considering purchasing a brand new and potentially cheaper Chinese-made C919 aircraft to further expand its current fleet, Asian low-cost carrier AirAsia, which currently has an all-Airbus fleet, said it may additionally consider purchasing the plane because it ignores recent planes could be silly.
“I think as an airline you have to look at everything. We’ll be fools if we don’t look at new planes,” AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said in an interview on Bloomberg Television, where he was asked whether his company would consider a Chinese-made C919.
As the airline enters the mainland China market, AirAsia executive chairman Kamarudin Meranun said his company is considering a number of other measures, including aircraft orders.
“We are working closely with Huawei to create a digital airline and smart airport that will change the way we fly, and we have also started exploring the COMAC C919. China has been good to us and we want to repay the favor in a big way,” Kamarudin said.
AirAsia’s current fleet consists of 173 A320-200, six A320-200neo and 30 A330-300 aircraft operated by units in India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Twenty-three customers have already placed orders for 570 aircraft, in line with COMAC’s website.
As previously reported, AirAsia announced last week that it has signed a three way partnership agreement to launch a brand new Chinese startup, AirAsia China. AirAsia China’s planned headquarters might be situated in Zhengzhou, in China’s Henan province, situated on the Yellow River. The project is to be implemented in cooperation with the Everbright Group.
AirAsia already has a presence in China and offers flights to fifteen destinations, making it the biggest foreign airline within the country.
China is forecast to overtake the United States because the world’s largest air travel market by 2024, but budget carriers have yet to make any progress resulting from the dominance of the three largest state-owned players: Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines.
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