China’s Comac poised to rise on Boeing’s downfall

Chinese plane maker tripling production capacity to seize Boeing’s local market share despite the looming threat of US sanctions.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, better known as Comac, plans to triple its production capacity to meet rising domestic demand for passenger jets, an expansion that coincides with ongoing troubles for American aviation giant Boeing’s planes.

The chances that Comac will overtake the maligned and mismanaged US plane maker in China’s booming aviation market are rising. But so too are the chances that the US might respond with new sanctions targeting Comac and other Chinese plane makers.

Comac plans to establish a second manufacturing site in Shanghai with an assembly line for its C919 narrow-body passenger jet and related logistics facilities, according to recent reports. The reported goal is to raise Comac’s annual production capacity from about 50 aircraft now to 150 later in the decade.