This year’s Paris Air Show was dominated by the annual order battle between Airbus (AIR. PA) and Boeing (BA. N) , but industry executives said the duopoly will be forced to share the stage at future shows as newcomers from Russia, China and Japan muscle into the passenger plane market.
Japan’s Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp (7011. T) brought its MRJ regional jet to Europe for the first time during the air show. China and Russia carried out maiden flights of new narrow-body aircraft last month in their bids to enter the $100 billion-plus annual aerospace market.
The two countries have also set up a joint venture to build wide-body jets to challenge incumbents.
Consultants Alix Partners estimates that of the current order backlog of around 13,000 planes, about 7-8 percent are for planes from new entrants, among them Russia, China and Japan.
Delegates at the show said mounting a proper challenge will take Russia and China at least a decade. The newcomers face headwinds including proving their technology, and gaining customer confidence by deploying and maintaining a quality aircraft maintenance and support network.
«Overall, there are big steps not only on the product side but on the support and services side for the airlines to feel confident that they can go in and order those aircraft, » Pascal Fabre, managing director at Alix Partners in Paris, said.
However, China and Russia are large enough markets that orders from their home countries alone could propel the respective airliner ventures.
Among COMAC’s first customers for its C919 was China Eastern, which has ordered up to 20 planes from the Chinese manufacturer, while Aeroflot is due to take the Russian MS21.
COMAC said this week total orders for the C919 stood at 600 from 24 customers.
Giorgio Callegari, strategy and alliances director at Russian carrier Aeroflot (AFLT.
