For more than a decade, China’s state-owned aircraft manufacturer has plugged away at developing commercial jets. Until recently, efforts to sell foreign customers on an alternative to the United States-European duopoly of Boeing and Airbus showed little progress. Then the American giant messed up again.

The blowout of a side panel in a 737 Max operated by Alaska Airlines starts to make Commercial Aircraft Corp of China look like an option worth exploring. Airlines tend to share orders between Airbus and Boeing to ensure they are not entirely reliant on one supplier and to play the manufacturers off against each other. With the latest troubles, a third choice makes sense. Better known as Comac, the Shanghai-based company has already secured more than 1,000 orders, but they are largely from domestic customers such as China Eastern Airlines.