Given China’s standing as the world’s third largest market for commercial airplanes, it should have come as little surprise when Bombardier moved to consolidate its foothold in the People’s Republic with a proposal to collaborate on the indigenous ARJ21-900 regional jet during the 2007 Paris Air Show. Two-and-a-half years later the memorandum of understanding it signed with China’s then-largest aerospace conglomerate, AVIC I, has yet to yield the level of cooperation Bombardier envisioned, however. Today, development of the ARJ21-900–the airplane Bombardier promised to help develop–has come to a halt, as the Chinese focus their energies on the more ambitious C919, a 150- to 200-seat narrowbody meant to compete directly with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.
Happily for Bombardier, the part of the deal that called for the Chinese to invest as much as $400 million in the C Series airliner family survives in the form of a separate supply agreement with Shenyang Aircraft, the designated maker of the Canadian narrowbody’s aluminum-lithium fuselage barrels and doors. Shenyang’s contribution will account for roughly 10 percent of the entire structural work package for the both the 100- to 125-seat CS110 and 120- to 145-seat CS300–
airplanes the Canadian company has declared perfectly suited for the Chinese market.
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