"That Ryanair in Ireland?" Mr. Lee repeated.

"A year ago, when I was working at General Motors, I heard that the Irish company approached Boeing and asked if Boeing had any plans to continue developing a 50-seat regional airliner. Li Guowei spread his hands.

"Oh, they actually looked for Boeing before they found us?" Liang Yuan asked curiously.

Throughout the eighties, the development prospects of the next generation of advanced regional airliners were as chaotic as fog, and generally speaking, two views occupied the mainstream position in the international aviation community, one was that the development trend of regional airliners and trunk airliners was the same, and they were developing in the direction of big and bigger.

There is also a perception that the 50-seater jet is the future of regional airliner development.

If the regional airliner develops in the direction of large and larger, then the 737 or A320 narrow-body trunk series, which has been recognized by the international mainstream aviation community, can be completely backward compatible, so that the redevelopment of a new regional airliner platform will seem to be a thing that outweighs the loss.

The 50-seat jet regional airliner is a complete chicken rib for a behemoth like Boeing, Airbus or even McDonnell Douglas, and instead of investing resources in this kind of small aircraft without any technical content, it is better to concentrate on the next generation of narrow-body trunk airliners or wide-body large airliners that are related to the competitiveness of their own enterprises.

These two mainstream opinions deeply influenced the judgment of international aviation companies at that time, and the two future regional airliner powerhouses, Bombardier Canada and Brazilian Aircraft Company, both chose the 50-seat class of this judgment scheme, and both of them coincidentally started the research and development of CRJ100 series and ERJ145 series regional airliner platforms in the late 80s and early 90s.

However, with the collapse of the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union, the global resources were withdrawn from the confrontation of the Cold War, and the regional airliner market developed rapidly with an explosive trend, and the number of passengers carried by 50-seat regional airliners began to be stretched thin around 95 years, and the 80-100 seat class began to become the mainstream requirement of airlines.

Of course. Due to the huge investment in the aviation industry, Bombardier and the Brazilian aircraft industry successively observed for two to five years before deciding to develop the next generation of regional airliners with a passenger capacity of 80-100 classes, but after a few years of hesitant observation, it also led Airbus to launch the A319 and Boeing to launch the 717 and other models to enter the regional airliner market and eat away at the share.

However, in the late 80s, the competition between international civil aviation aircraft was full of gunsmoke, and it was far from being comparable to the two giants A and B in later generations, and rumors about Boeing's attempt to develop a 50-seat regional airliner were even more rampant. Ryanair came as no surprise when it approached Boeing.

Li Guowei nodded, and said with a smile: "Ryan's chief of operations O'Reilly also asked whether his company could moderately participate in the new plan for the development of Boeing's new passenger aircraft when he visited Seattle, because Ryan has no reputation and influence in the aviation operation industry, Boeing decisively rejected O'Reilly's offer, and after trying to get O'Reilly to buy a 737 airliner failed, Boeing used an official document to return O'Reilly to Ireland, and clearly denied the recent plan to develop a 50-seat regional airliner. ”

Liang Yuan laughed when he heard this, with Boeing's mentality of thinking that Lao Tzu is the best in the world at this time, super big-name airlines such as Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways, and Lufthansa can make Boeing greet with a smile. Ryan's dust shrimp is completely negligible.

Unfortunately, Boeing could not have imagined that it would take only 10 years for the seemingly humble Ryanair to become Europe's largest low-cost air transport company, with a fleet of more than 300 aircraft (Note 1).

Of course, without Liang Yuan's involvement, Ryanair finally chose the Boeing 737 series passenger aircraft as its own fleet, but with Liang Yuan's involvement, Boeing is destined to lose this incomparably huge piece of fat.

According to the development report made by COMAC and MBB for CMB Aerospace, it is expected to be by the end of 1993. Prior to the official maiden flight of the CM100 airliner, CMB Aerospace had invested at least $1 billion in fixed assets. R&D, management, production and other personnel investment is increasing year by year, with an average annual investment of $300 million, which means that CMB Aerospace's overall investment in the CM100 project is as high as $2.2 billion.

If calculated at an average price of $20 million for a CM series passenger aircraft, and based on the profit margin of the aviation industry similar to the chip industry, the approximate break-even point of CMB Aerospace is around 240 aircraft.

It can be said that relying on Ryanair's list alone, CMB Aerospace can rest easy about its future survival. If you take into account Ryanair's leadership role for other new low-cost airlines after dominating the European low-cost airline market, it is normal for sales of CM series regional airliners to increase several times.

In fact, in the plane where Liang Yuan did not participate, the reason why Ryanair finally chose the Boeing 737 family of passenger aircraft as its operating fleet was largely influenced by Southwest Airlines, the pioneer of global low-cost airlines.

"Mr. Li probably doesn't know. Before Ryanair approached Boeing, the first aviation aircraft manufacturer was MBB, and in '86, Lufthansa and Ryanair both intended to update their propeller regional airliners into jet regional airliners and expand their fleets, at that time the two put forward orders of interest for more than 30 aircraft. ”

"It can be said that this is the reason why the MPC75 project, the initial program of the CM100 passenger aircraft, was originally established, when the MPC75 project carried only 50 passengers, and it was completely for Lufthansa and Ryanair orders, and now things have gone around for three whole years, except for one more United Airlines in our country, things are more or less back to square one. Liang Yuan said with a smile.

The reason why Liang Yuan dared to defy public opinion and took Yuanjia to plunge into the foundationless aviation industry was to grasp the low-cost airlines that would become popular on the entire planet in the future, and the demand for professional jet regional airliners with less than 100 seats in this market exceeded 6,000 before the new century alone, and exploded to more than 10,000 in just five years after entering the new century.

What is more important is that before the Asian financial crisis of '98, Airbus and Boeing, which were rivals to each other, focused their attention and energy on the field of large and larger giant passenger aircraft, a huge market of more than $300 billion, which was not noticed by any powerful old aviation companies at the end of the 80s.

Without Lufthansa as the starting user of the CRJ100/200 regional airliner, Bombardier's confidence in entering the regional airliner will definitely be hit, not to mention that Liang Yuan also commanded COMAC and Bombardier to compete with the British Schott aircraft company.

First cut off Bombardier's tentacles into the field of regional airliners, and by the time Brazilian Aircraft Company launched the ERJ145 research and development program in 95, the CM100 series of airliners had already become a climate.

At that time, this market of more than 300 billion US dollars will be monopolized by CMB Aerospace, and at that time, Yuan Jiali will be stirred up with Liang Yuan's temperament, even if the legs of Boeing and Airbus are not discounted, a layer of skin will be peeled off on these two giants. (To be continued......)