China‘s self-developed large passenger aircraft, the C919, completed its first commercial flight from Shanghai to Beijing on Sunday May 28th, marking its official entry into the civil aviation market. The flight, operated by China Eastern Airlines, took off as MU9191 at 10:32 a.m. from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport with 128 passengers on board.
The plane was greeted with a water salute after touching down at Beijing Capital International Airport at 12:31 p.m. The C919 is China’s first self-developed trunk jetliner in accordance with international standards and owns independent intellectual property rights.
The first commercial flight is a coming-of-age ceremony of the new aircraft.
Zhang Xiaoguang, director marketing and sales COMAC
The C919 project was launched in 2007. Developed by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC), the aircraft rolled off the production line in Shanghai in November 2015. In 2017, the plane accomplished its maiden flight. “The first commercial flight is a coming-of-age ceremony of the new aircraft, and C919 will get better and better if it stands the test of the market,” said Zhang Xiaoguang, director of the marketing and sales department of COMAC.
Back in December of 2022, the first COMAC C919 was delivered to customer China Eastern Airlines in Shanghai. The plane made a 15-minute flight by three senior CEA pilots from the Shanghai Pudong International Airport to the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport. The short flight was meant to celebrate the historic moment.
The aircraft, a rival to the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX, is expected to make its first commercial flight next spring, China‘s news agency Xinhua reported. The COMAC’s first inaugural route will be between Shanghai and the capital Beijing.
The C919 delivered to China Eastern has a 164-seat configuration that comes with a two-class cabin layout, including 8 business class seats and 156 economy class ones, according to Aviation Source news. In the economy cabin, the middle seat in each three-seat row is 1.5 cm wider than its neighboring ones, which offers more comfortableness.
With an aisle height of 2.25 meters, the plane comes with an efficient air filtration system, a passenger-centric lighting system and low noise. Besides, there are twenty 12” drop-down screens that can play 1080P videos.
The pre-production phase of aircraft took a long while. The first test flight took place in 2017, while its first commercial contract with CEA was signed in April of this year. It obtained its Type Certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) on September 29th, 2022. According to CNN, it started mass production in November.
China Eastern said it plans to receive the remaining four orders for its first batch of C919s over the next two years, according to The Paper of Shanghai. The airline is the world’s first airline operator for C919. It has a fleet of nearly 800 airplanes.
Commercial Aviation Corp of China (COMAC) is expected to produce about 25 C919 aircraft per year by 2030, well below current monthly production rates of narrow-body aircraft from rivals, according to analysts at Jefferies.
The C919 relies heavily on Western components, including engines and flight control systems, from companies such as GE, Safran and Honeywell International. China is seeking to increase the proportion of domestic parts on the C919 and an alternative engine called the CJ-1000A is being developed.
