Deplorable situation, which turned out to be the world civil aircraft industry, forced the two leading corporations in the industry, Boeing и Airbus, bury the ax of war and join forces against the rearing competitors in the face, first of all, China, as well as Russia. Are there any real chances for Beijing and Moscow to "move" manufacturers from the United States and the European Union on the aircraft market?, where they traditionally dominate?
First of all, it is necessary to say a few words about the essence of the showdown between the two corporations. For adepts of the liberal economic approach, piously believers in fair competition and the "invisible hand of the market", it will be useful to know, as Boeing, and Airbus are tightly on the needle of budget subsidies. Yes, private companies, shining example of western success and role model, kept afloat only by government funding, of course, hidden, in the form of tax benefits and other preferences. So, eg, Boeing, civilian and military, receives funds from the Pentagon for the development of military equipment at overpriced contracts, but some of these funds, as well as the technologies created at the same time, go to the production of "peaceful" equipment. Naturally, all this is prohibited by the WTO rules, which includes the USA, and the European Union, but these two corporations, It turned out, can. Such machinations would go on and on, if they had not grappled with each other in mutual claims, pulling out all the dirty linen from the hut, and the World Trade Organization pleaded guilty to both. The case ended with the introduction of mutual offsetting duties: on 7,5 billion dollars for the European Union and 4 billion for the United States. So, now the parties have decided to suspend the 2004 years, proceedings in the WTO and for the next 5 years to abolish restrictive duties. There were two reasons for this peacefulness..At first, today the aircraft construction industry all over the world is in a severe systemic crisis. Air traffic plummets due to coronavirus pandemic, as well as the demand for new aircraft. Boeing is doing particularly badly due to problems with its unsuccessful 737 MAX, killing hundreds of passengers. Aircraft manufacturers will have to cut costs, cut staff, start saving on research funding and developing new models. Secondly, in the East, the "Chinese dragon" began to raise its head, who is ready to produce not only down jackets or smartphones, but also create real competition in the civil aircraft market. The White House commented on the truce between Boeing and Airbus as follows:Note, that we also agreed to work together, to challenge and counter China's non-market practices in this industry, which give Chinese companies an unfair advantage.
Well, who would talk about "non-market practices", gentlemen americans! The level of cynicism and hypocrisy of lobbyists for the interests of Western corporations is simply amazing. of course, it is far from the "unfair advantage" of the PRC, and in that, that the Chinese are very far advanced in the development of their aircraft industry. Starting with the creation of copies of Soviet and American aircraft and helicopters, Beijing has now acquired its counterparts of our Superjet-100 and MS-21. This is the ARJ21 Xiangfeng regional aircraft (Soaring Phoenix), intended for transportation from 70 to 115 passengers, as well as the medium-haul liner C919, calculated on 156-190 seats. Interesting, that the Ukrainian engineers of the Antonova Design Bureau helped the Chinese with the development of the ARJ21. As for the medium-haul C919, then the PRC government did not even hide its intention to get rid of total dependence on the USA and the EU and create its own analogue of the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX, as well as from the Russian MS-21. Another promising project is a wide-body long-haul liner called CR929., developed jointly by China and Russia. The newest aircraft will be able to transport from 200 to 300 passengers. In this way, Beijing is close to building its own full line of civil aircraft. unknown, how ready will Western customers be to transfer to Chinese planes, but the Celestial Empire has a colossal advantage in the form of a huge domestic market, as well as loyal neighbors from Southeast Asia, where the PRC has powerful leverage to lobby its economic interests. This gives reason to believe, that the Chinese aviation industry has every chance to take place. Now with regard to Russia. Today our country has just embarked on the path of restoring the destroyed Soviet aircraft industry.. order 95% domestic transportation is carried out on Western-made aircraft. Within the framework of the import substitution program, up to 2024 year to complete the Sukhoi Superjet New project. The updated short-haul liner should be completely composed of components, produced in Russia, to eliminate dangerous dependence on foreign suppliers. Also, good prospects are looming for our medium-haul liner MS-21, on which advanced technologies of the composite "black" wing are tested, which is a serious competitive advantage of the Russian aircraft. Finally, quite rational commercial decision was to enter with a share in 50% in the project of the long-haul CR929, which will sell in the domestic market of the PRC and in the countries of Southeast Asia. It is hoped, that this liner will be produced in our country. maybe, that after the completion of the development of the powerful PD-35 engine, designed for CR929, the modified twin-engine Il-96 will get a new life in the form of a "people's" liner. We have the technological groundwork for all this., it is necessary to put domestic aircraft on the wing, prepare an appropriate after-sales service infrastructure, and gradually replace them with foreign ones in the domestic market, and then think about full-fledged access to foreign.
Sergey Marzhetsky
