China starts aviation training for Southeast Asia amid C919, home-grown jet push

China is training representatives from Southeast Asia this month in an effort to promote its home-grown civilian aircraft, as the region leads the world in accepting Chinese deliveries despite Airbus and Boeing’s dominance.

Twenty participants from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam are taking part in the 2025 China-Asean Civil Aviation Management Capacity Enhancement Workshop in Beijing, which started Monday.

Organised by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the 14-day training course covers safety management, airworthiness certification, green development, new technologies and domestically produced large aircraft, according to an online statement.

The workshop is being held at a time when the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), the Shanghai-based manufacturer of the C909 and C919 aircraft, is seeking to expand its presence in the Southeast Asian market and service the travel needs of its 700 million people.

“I think it’s a good time to enter into trying to push the development of the manufacturer,” said Hugh Ritchie, CEO of Aviation Analysts International in Australia, citing the broader trend of China-Southeast Asia economic cooperation.

Comac hoped to “break the duopoly” of Airbus and Boeing, Ritchie added. The two Western giants supply most of the world’s large jet aeroplane fleet.

The Chinese firm’s nine-year-old small C909-model regional jets have operated in Southeast Asia for the past decade, making a total of 470,000 passenger trips, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

South China Morning Post