Global Courant 2023-05-28 08:50:00
BEIJING/SHANGHAI — China Eastern Airlines piloted the C919 on its first commercial flight on Sunday, bringing the plane homegrown into passenger service and marking a milestone in the country’s efforts to become more self-reliant.
Commercial Aviation Corp of China (Comac) began development of the C919 15 years ago to rival the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX single-aisle jet families. President Xi Jinping hailed the project as one of the country’s top innovative achievements.
The plane took off from Shanghai, where both Comac and China Eastern are headquartered, a little before 10:32 a.m. local time, bound for Beijing, according to flight tracker app Variflight.
After the almost two and a half hour flight to Beijing and a turnaround time of 1 hour and 40 minutes, the plane flies back to Shanghai.
The intention is to make a longer flight to the southwestern city of Chengdu and back on Monday.
Mr Lv Boyuan, a 21-year-old student and aviation enthusiast, was at Shanghai airport on Sunday to catch a flight to Chengdu, where he planned to take a C919 flight back to Shanghai the day after.
“I’ve been really looking forward to his flight, especially since it’s a new generation plane, unlike Boeing and Airbus, whose planes have been around for a number of years,” he noted.
State-backed China Eastern ordered five C919 jets in March 2021 and took delivery of the first in December. It has said it expects to receive the remaining aircraft this year.
According to Comac data, the C919 received 1,035 orders from 32 customers by the end of 2022. This year, a company official told media it had received more than 1,200 orders.
The first flight was recorded in 2017 after years of delays and numerous test flights have been conducted since then.
Although the C919 is assembled in China, it relies heavily on Western components, including engines and avionics, from companies such as GE, Safran, and Honeywell International.
Mr. Li Hanming, an independent expert on China’s aviation industry, said most orders for the C919 were letters of intent from domestic customers. Lessor GE Capital Aviation Services is one of the few foreign buyers.
“For the C919, the domestic market is big enough,” he added.
Mr. Greg Waldron, Asia editor-in-chief of industry publication FlightGlobal, said the international market for the C919 is questionable as neither the European Union Aviation Safety Agency nor the Federal Aviation Administration has certified the aircraft.
“Until this happens, major international markets will be closed to the C919,” he noted.
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