HNA Aviation Group, parent company of Hainan Airlines ordered 100 planes from the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) with 60 of Comac's C919 single-aisle passenger jets and 40 of the ARJ21 regional jetliners. The statement from the company did not divulge any financial details. This purchase follows COMAC’s confirmation of an order for 300 C919 aircraft during last year’s Zhuhai Airshow
"The two parties will take advantage of this opportunity to deepen cooperation and further integrate the civil aviation transport industry with commercial airline manufacturing to build a strong nation in terms of civil aviation and manufacturing," the statement read.
Of the 100 jets, 30 C919s will be for Hainan Airlines’ subsidiary Urumqi Airways. Urumqi Air, Suparna Airlines, Hainan Airlines and COMAC signed a core terms list according to an announcement. Following this, Urumqi Air and COMAC will negotiate separately to sign a purchase agreement for C919 aircraft and agree on specific delivery arrangements.
COMAC will meet Urumqi Air’s demand for aircraft delivery as much as possible based on actual production capacity. As one of the first batch users of C919 aircraft, Urumqi Air can enjoy preferential policies. Additionally, COMAC will provide support in financing matching, aircraft value assessment, aviation materials and tool equipment guaranteeing, maintenance operations technology performance, etc.
Urumqi Air is the only local airline in Xinjiang, operating 16 B737-800 aircraft as of March 2023. Its total assets amounted to 1.925 billion yuan by the end of 2022, while its net assets were -1.888 billion yuan.
Based on COMAC’s 2018 data, the C919 large passenger received orders from 28 customers, totalling 815 confirmed and intended orders