SINGAPORE – The year 2025 was supposed to be a big one for Chinese aircraft manufacturer Comac.
With more than 1,000 of its C919 passenger planes on order, the state-backed jet maker had pledged to ramp up production of the home-grown jetliner – Beijing’s answer to the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 Max.
Executives said in March 2025 that Comac would deliver up to 75 planes by the end of the year, up from an initial target of 50.
However, by September 2025, the annual delivery target was slashed to 25, and Comac ended the year well short – shipping only 13 C919 jets, according to a Dec 24 Bloomberg report.
The shortfall laid bare a central vulnerability in China’s commercial aviation ambitions: its reliance on Western-made aircraft engines.
An unsteady flow of aircraft parts, including engines that were subject to a two-month export ban earlier in the year, was cited as a reason for Comac’s faltering output, underscoring how exposed the programme remains to overseas suppliers.
It is also why China has, since 2016, been racing to develop its own domestic commercial jet engine to free itself of Western dependence and assert greater aerospace sovereignty.
While public updates have been scant, the CJ-1000A aircraft engine, developed by state-owned aerospace company Aero Engine Corporation of China (AECC), is said to be on the cusp of completing airworthiness certification – the regulatory approval required before an engine can be used on commercial passenger flights – after more than two years of test flights.
Getting the nod from China’s civil aviation authority would pave the way for the Chinese engine, which is named after the Yangtze river – Chang Jiang in Mandarin – to be installed on the C919 plane for commercial use.
The engine would replace the Leap-1Cs that power the C919s today, which are supplied by CFM International – a joint venture between US manufacturer GE Aerospace and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines.
The most recent hint of the CJ-1000A’s progress was given in August 2025 by Chinese Academy of Engineering member Zhang Yanzhong, a key figure in China’s aerospace push.
“The current progress is very positive. As for when it will be installed on Chinese aircraft – just wait for the good news,” he told state broadcaster CCTV.
Aviation analysts, however, cautioned that China remains far from achieving jet-engine self-sufficiency and loosening its reliance on Western suppliers.
Mr Mayur Patel, head of commercial and industry affairs for Asia-Pacific at aviation data consultancy OAG Aviation, told The Straits Times that domestic certification and initial deliveries for the CJ-1000A engine were more likely to happen in 2027 or 2028.
Mass production is expected around 2030, while international certification remains years away.
Mr Li Hanming, an independent expert on Chinese aviation, noted that the CJ-1000A has been used as a second engine on the Xi’an Y-20 military transport plane as part of testing, and the results are said to have exceeded initial projections.
