Nigeria would consider buying China’s newly-certified C919 passenger jet as it grows the country’s fledgling carrier Nigeria Air to 30 planes by around 2025, Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika said on Saturday.
Sirika said the new airline would have a mixture of Airbus and Boeing planes, but added the carrier is also willing to look at the Chinese narrowbody jet, which Chinese regulators certified on Friday.
→ Airbus delivers its 500th A350.
“We haven’t looked at that C919. But if it’s as good as the others then why not,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the United Nation’s aviation agency’s triennial assembly in Montreal, Canada.
The first C919 aircraft, designed to compete with popular single-aisle models made by Airbus and Boeing, will be delivered by the end of the year, state Xinhua News Agency said.
It remains unclear when the plane might be certified by the United States or Europe, opening the way to sales in most foreign markets, but industry analysts say it will be up to a decade before China can seriously tackle the existing Boeing-Airbus duopoly.
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