An attempt to create, together with China, the first wide-body Russian passenger aircraft since the times of the USSR, ended in a fiasco.
China has excluded Russia from the CR929 airliner project, which has been developed since 2017, planning to create a competitor to Boeing and Airbus. At the air show in Le Bourget, a new aircraft with a capacity of 280 passengers, the creation of which was estimated at $ 50 billion, was presented as its own Chinese development, in which neither Russia took part, at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), writes The Air Current.
Although even the abbreviation of the liner CR was supposed to symbolize the countries participating in the project (C – China, China; R – Russia, Russia), the Chinese partner – COMAC – decided to refuse the services of the UAC, which was originally supposed to create a glider and wanted to participate in the creation of engines.
An industry source confirmed to The Air Current that Russia is excluded from the project: Beijing has decided to continue it on its own.
Problems with Russian participation in the creation of the aircraft, which made its first flight this year, began from the very first years. COMAC refused to allow Russia to receive income from the sale of the aircraft in the domestic Chinese market. Instead, UAC was offered an increased share of global sales (70%). But it was in China that the demand for the aircraft in the amount of 3,000 aircraft was expected, while its global prospects were unclear.
In 2022, after the start of the war in Ukraine and the imposition of Western sanctions against the Russian aviation industry, China decided to abandon all Russian developments in the CR929 and replace them with Western ones.
In particular, COMAC insisted on the use of German and American components instead of chassis trucks manufactured by the Russian Federation, and in addition, it decided to involve Rolls-Royce and General Electric in the development of the engine, although Russia hoped to participate in this part of the project.
