The first Boeing 777 air freighter delivered to Air China Cargo in 2013 Photo: Courtesy of Boeing

Graphics: GT

 

US plane producer Boeing said Wednesday that the number of planes it delivered to the Chinese mainland market hit a record high in 2013 and it will deliver a similar amount in 2014.  

In 2013, Boeing delivered 143 airplanes to China, up 60 percent from the previous year, and the company predicted that the number of delivered airplanes this year could also exceed 140.

"We have fully accomplished our growth target in 2013, and it shows our achievement in improved production ability," Marc Allen, president of Boeing China, said at a meeting in Beijing, noting 28 percent of Boeing 737s made in the US was delivered to China in 2013.

In March, Boeing delivered its 1,000th airplane to China, the second market after the US to hit the 1,000-delivery threshold. In June, Boeing delivered its first Boeing 787 to China Southern Airlines, followed by a delivery of a 737-800 airplane to Xiamen Airlines in November, the 100th plane in the airline's all-Boeing fleet.

In total, the company has delivered 14 Boeing 787 to China Southern and Hainan Airlines, and Boeing said more than 50 percent of the jet planes in China are from the company.

However, 2013 is not the only fruitful year for Boeing.

In an e-mail sent to the Global Times Wednesday, Boeing's main rival Airbus said that the company has accomplished the delivery of more than 100 airlines annually for four consecutive years in China, and predicted that its deliveries to China will also exceed 100 in 2014.

In 2013, Airbus delivered 133 airplanes to Chinese customers produced from Toulouse in France, Hamburg in Germany and Tianjin in China, accounting for 20 percent of its global delivery.

Among the deliveries were 109 single-aisle A320 Family, 23 A330 Family and one A380.

"The high delivery is mainly due to the strong market demand, as China and the Middle East are now two booming markets globally," Lin Zhijie, an independent market watcher, told the Global Times Wednesday.

The business in China is mainly the purchase of new airplanes to meet the growing demand, compared with that of the developed countries such as US which now mainly buy airplanes to update old fleets, Lin said, predicting that high delivery trend will still continue for another five years in China.  

According to Boeing, the company gained 230 orders in Chinese market in 2013, covering all the single-aisle and twin-aisle airplanes. Among those orders, 130 were signed with leasing companies.

In comparison, Airbus said that more than 200 aircraft were booked in 2013, including 100 A320 Family for Air China and Shenzhen Airlines, and 60 airplanes for China Aviation Supplies Holding Company.

However, insiders have said that the delivered airplanes were mainly ordered during 2009 and 2011, and warned that the transport capacity in China has now become excessive.

In an earlier interview with the Global Times, Su Baoliang, an analyst at CITIC Securities, said that passenger growth has been far lower than that of capacity growth among the three State-owned carriers, and how to utilize capacity will be an urgent issue for the airlines to think about.