Reports that Air China, China Eastern, and China Southern are collectively expecting 33 C919s this year — a more than doubling of the 15 aircraft they received in 2025. But context matters
Our analysis shows that COMAC has delivered a cumulative total of 32 C919s since the program began — meaning the 2026 airline target alone would require nearly matching the program’s entire history in a single year. IBA Group independently forecasts just 25 for 2026, rising to 45 in 2027.
The CFM Engine Dependency: The Critical Chokepoint
Probably the single biggest structural vulnerability for this program is the LEAP-1C engine. In May 2025, the US Commerce Department suspended CFM LEAP-1C export licenses to COMAC as part of the broader trade war — a five-week embargo that demonstrated exactly how fragile C919 production is. The restrictions were lifted in July 2025 as trade tensions eased, but the lesson was stark: without CFM engines, the assembly line stops.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
