November Releases from Panda & Skywings

1/11/2017

Whilst I've been away Panda and Skywings have announced their November releases and it's a bumper month with 17 models, six of which are not Chinese! In fact this month Indonesia, Japan and Russia get a look in and both manufacturers continue to release narrowbodies that few other manufacturers release regularly. Panda has for example released far more 737 MAX -8s than anybody else. Plus there is a new mould also. Let's take a look at what is on offer.

Skywings - November

Skywings continues to focus on its home market of China but does so with some unusual and interesting releases. The clear winner of this month must be the new mould for a Comac C919, China's answer to the A320. The C919 prototype has now flown but it remains to be seen whether it can be more competitive than the ARJ-21 has proven. At least theoretically 730 of these are on order, almost universally for the massively growing Chinese home market.

More unusual even than that is an A330 for Chrysanthemum Airlines. Who are they? I just don't know. They have a blank webpage and an odd Facebook page but are they a real startup or something else. Does anyone have any information? I get the feeling this is a fantasy release of some kind.

More normal Skywings releases include a China Express A320, two China Postal 737-300Fs and a trio of Xiamen 737-800s. One of the Xiamen 737s continues the odd nosecone theme they did with a CX A330 recently.

Panda Models - November

Panda motor on with an interesting batch of releases centred around their new 737 MAX-8 and older but updated 737-800 moulds. These cover Lion Air and special schemes for the Russian airline Nordstar and the Japanese JTA.

The other trio of releases represent the first A320NEOs for Sichuan and an interesting VR- registered Cathay Pacific 50th Anniversary scheme from 1996: