Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China won an order for 30 C919 aircraft from Bank of Communications Co. (3328)’s leasing arm, the third deal in about a month for the nation’s first passenger jet.
The agreement raises the order backlog for the single-aisle plane to 195, Shanghai-based Comac said in an e-mailed statement today. It didn’t give a value for the contract.
Comac also won 65 orders for C919s from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.’s leasing arm and Sichuan Airlines last month, boosting its efforts to challenge Boeing Co. (BA) and Airbus SAS in the world’s largest plane market. China will need as many as 5,000 new aircraft through 2030, of which 71 percent will be narrow-body planes, according to Boeing.
The C919 is due to make its first flight in 2014 and to enter service in two years, according to Comac’s schedule.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jasmine Wang in Hong Kong at Jwang513@bloomberg.net; Billy Chan in Hong Kong at bchan101@bloomberg.net