“C919 Completes First Commercial Flight, Marks China’s Push for Self-Sufficiency in Aviation Industry”

28.05.2023

The C919 passenger aircraft manufactured by COMAC completed its first commercial passenger flight on May 28, and will implement normal commercial flights on the Shanghai-Chengdu route in the future. Experts pointed out that because the European and American aviation departments have not yet issued licenses, the model is currently mainly dependent on domestic orders.

(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) China’s domestically produced C919 large passenger jet completed its first commercial flight on Sunday, Reuters pointed out, marking another step in the country’s efforts to reduce its dependence on foreign countries.

The C919, with a maximum capacity of 192 passengers, is a large airliner manufactured by state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). In 2007, the State Council of China approved the formal establishment of the project.First flight completed in 2017In 2022, it will obtain a production license issued by the Civil Aviation Administration until the first flight of commercial flights this Sunday.The jet is intended to compete with the likes of Airbus’ A320neo and Boeing’s 737 MAX。

At 10:32 a.m. local time on Sunday, China Eastern Airlines flight MU9191, using the world’s first C919 passenger aircraft delivered by COMAC, took off from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and landed at the destination Beijing Capital International Airport at around 12:30 noon.

The plane returned to Shanghai on Sunday and was expected to take a flight to Chengdu on Monday.

State-owned China Eastern Airlines has ordered five C919s for 2021. COMAC delivered its first passenger plane in December last year. China Eastern Airlines said that it expects to complete the remaining deliveries within this year.

As of the end of 2022, COMAC has received a total of 1035 orders from 32 customers. COMAC plans to increase annual production of the C919 to 150 within five years, Chinese media reported in January.

Although assembled in China, the C919 also relies heavily on components provided by Western companies, including General Electric (GE), Safran (Safran) and Liebherr (Liebherr).

On May 28, the French Embassy in China posted on its official Weibo to congratulate COMAC C919 on its first commercial flight to China Eastern Airlines MU9191. Openness and cooperation to promote common progress. Competitor Boeing also posted on Weibo, “sincere congratulations” to China Eastern Airlines and COMAC.

Li Hanming, an independent expert who focuses on China’s civil aviation industry, told Reuters that most of the C919 orders received by COMAC are letters of intent from domestic airlines in China. A handful of foreign clients include GE Capital Aviation Services, the aircraft leasing company owned by General Electric.

However, Li Hanming also pointed out that for C919, “the domestic market is already big enough.”

Greg Waldron, editor-in-chief of the Asia Department of FlightGlobal, an aviation industry network information platform, pointed out that since the aviation management departments in Europe and the United States have not issued licenses to the C919, there is still a problem with how to open the international market for this model. question.

“Until a license is obtained, important international markets are closed for the C919”, he concluded.

(Reuters, Xinhua News Agency, etc.)

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