Africa World Airlines to buy two planes from China

 Domestic flight operator in Ghana, The Africa World Airline is close to buying two jets from China,  they confirmed to the daily mail.

Chinese planemaker Comac is optimistic the deal will boost relationship with the West African country as it attempts to become a real challenger to Boeing and Airbus.

Africa World Airlines is partly owned by China’s HNA Group.

Confirming talks to buy two Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) ARJ21 regional jets, the carrier’s chief executive officer, John Quan, told the South China Morning Post that: “Our Chinese shareholders are very keen to introduce the aircraft to boost China-Africa trade relations.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government, as part of his Belt & Road Initiative, has been helping African governments build airports and other infrastructure. Offering low-cost Chinese-made planes is part of that strategy, said Shukor Yusof, founder of aviation consultancy Endau Analytics in Malaysia.

“It serves the purpose of enlarging Chinese political influence,” he said. “The Chinese are trying to create a market for themselves. They are looking to Africa to have a foothold and once they gain acceptance on a larger scale, then they will start to go beyond those markets.”

With about 80 to 90 seats, Comac’s ARJ21 competes with ERJ planes made by Embraer, the Brazilian company forming a partnership with Boeing, and the A220, designed by Bombardier but marketed by Airbus. The Republic of Congo ordered three ARJ21s in 2014, and AWA is just one of the African airlines now being targeted.

Comac is also building the C919, a narrow-body passenger plane that will compete with Boeing’s 737 Max and the Airbus A320neo. Any African breakthrough would come as Boeing grapples with the worldwide grounding of the Max, the company’s fastest-selling plane, after two disasters involving the model in five months.

China is pushing for jetliner orders from a number of other African countries.

“Of course they have approached us,” Air Tanzania’s chief executive officer Ladislaus Matindi said in an interview last month. “The Chinese come with sweeteners,” he added, without giving details. He said the airline currently has no plans to buy Chinese planes.

Ethiopia’s ambassador to China, Teshome Toga Chanaka, on March 17 posted a photo of himself in a Comac plane at an air show in Shanghai. “It will not be so long that we will see them in the blue sky,” the ambassador wrote on Twitter.