China’s home-grown C919 completes milestone first commercial flight

China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd entered China’s homegrown narrow-body C919 jet into passenger service yesterday and completed its first commercial flight, marking a milestone in the country’s effort to be more self-reliant.

The C919 is the product of state-backed Commercial Aviation Corp of China (COMAC) which began developing the jet 15 years ago to rival Airbus SE’s A320neo and Boeing Co’s 737 MAX single-aisle jet families.

President Xi Jinping has hailed the project as a triumph of Chinese innovation, while yesterday state media trumpeted the plane as a symbol of industrial prowess and national pride.

“After generations of endeavour, we finally broke the West’s aviation monopoly and rid ourselves of the humiliation of ‘800-million shirts for one Boeing’,” Beijing Daily wrote, referring to the early years of economic reform when China manufactured mainly low-value goods.

The C919 took off at 10.32am from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport where COMAC and China Eastern Airlines are headquartered, and landed two hours later at Beijing Capital Airport, flight tracker app Variflight showed.

“I’m confident about the plane. The flight was smoother than expected,” one of about 130 passengers told state broadcaster CCTV as he disembarked.

The plane was scheduled to return to Shanghai yesterday, then make a longer two-way flight to the southwestern city of Chengdu today.

Lv Boyuan, a 21-year-old student and aviation enthusiast, was at Shanghai’s airport yesterday to fly to Chengdu from where he planned to return on the C919 today.

“I’ve been really looking forward to its flight, especially because it’s a new-generation aircraft, unlike Boeing and Airbus equivalents which have been about for a number of years now,” Lv said.

The C919 made its first flight in 2017 after years of delays and has undergone numerous test flights since.

State-backed China Eastern Airlines ordered five of the jets in March 2021.

It took delivery of the first in December and has said it expects to receive the remainder this year.

In total, COMAC had won 1,035 orders from 32 customers as at the end of last year.

A company official has since told media the figure exceeds 1,200.

The planemaker expects annual production to reach 150 C919 jets within five years, media reported in January.

Though assembled in China, the C919 relies heavily on Western components, including engines and avionics, from firms including General Electric Co, Safran SA and Honeywell International Inc.

Li Hanming, an independent expert on Chinese aviation, said most C919 orders were letters of intent from domestic customers.

Its few foreign customers include lessor GE Capital Aviation Services Ltd.

“For the C919, the domestic market is big enough,” Li said.

The international market is questionable given that neither European nor US regulators have certificated the aircraft, Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of industry publication FlightGlobal, said.

“Until this happens, key international markets will be closed to the C919.”

The C919’s predecessor, the ARJ21, is a short-haul 90-seat aircraft that entered commercial operation in 2016 and is flown by major Chinese airlines as well as Indonesia’s TransNusa.

The ARJ21’s use in Indonesia indicates the C919’s international future lies mainly in the developing world, Waldron said.

COMAC is also developing a CR929 wide-body jet in collaboration with Russia.