BEIJING: China’s first domestically-manufactured passenger jet has successfully
completed its maiden commercial flight. State TV showed the C919 rising into the skies
above Shanghai, heading to the capital Beijing early on Sunday.
It was built by the Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Comac) in the hope of
breaking the dominance of Airbus and Boeing’s single-aisle jets.
But the 164-seater still relies heavily on Western components, including engines and
avionics.
The Shanghai-Beijing leg of the journey, with more than 130 passengers on board, was
completed in just under three hours.
“I’m really confident in our country,” said passenger Liu Peng. He told Reuters news
agency C919 “will definitely get better and better”.
“I’m feeling very emotional,” said 21-year-old student and flight enthusiast LV Boyuan.
He spoke to Reuters at Shanghai airport before he boarded a normal flight to Chengdu,
from where he planned to take a return C919 flight the day after.
State-backed China Eastern Airline has ordered five of the planes.
Comac – which plans to produce 150 planes annually in five years’ time – says it has
already secured more than 1,200 orders for the C919.
Some experts, however, say that most of these orders are believed to be letters of
intent from domestic customers.
President Xi Jinping, who sat in the cockpit of a mock-up C919 a few years ago, has
described the project as one of China’s most innovative achievements. The C919 made
its first test flight in 2017 and has undergone several similar flights since.
