BEIJING: A significant step in the country’s decades-long drive to compete with Western competitors in the air was made on Sunday as China’s first domestically constructed passenger jet took off for its first commercial flight.
Even though a majority of its parts are imported, Beijing thinks the C919 commercial airliner will compete with Western models like the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320.
As relations with the West worsen, its first indigenous airliner with mass-market potential would reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign technology, according to AFP.
According to official broadcaster CCTV, “most passengers will be able to choose to travel by large, domestically produced aircraft” in the future.
According to CCTV, the China Eastern Airlines flight MU9191 from Shanghai “arrived smoothly” in Beijing shortly after 12:30 p.m., or about 40 minutes earlier than scheduled.
Following a brief ceremony on the tarmac, a few dozen crew members and officials stood for pictures as passengers filed off the plane and into the terminal.
“(The flight) was enjoyable, smooth, and enjoyable. A male passenger told CCTV. “I think I’ll remember this warmly for a long time to come.”
On Sunday morning, the broadcaster showed footage of the aircraft taking off above Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and said that there were 130 people on board.
Passengers gathered at the sun-drenched Shanghai airstrip to ogle the sleek white plane before boarding, as seen in state television footage.
According to CCTV, passengers received crimson boarding cards and a delectable “themed meal” to honour the trip.
While a cake was being cut during the trip, another video showed passengers waving national flags and singing a patriotic hymn.
China has made significant investments in domestic jet manufacture as part of its effort to become self-sufficient in critical technology.
Although the aircraft is made by the government-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), many of its components, notably its engines, are imported.
The flight was a “coming-of-age ceremony (for) the new aircraft,” COMAC’s head of marketing and sales, Zhang Xiaoguang, told the official news agency Xinhua. He added that the C919 “will improve if it stands the test of the market.”
‘Important milestone’
According to CCTV, starting on Monday, the C919 will run on China Eastern’s normal route between Shanghai and Chengdu in the southwest.
In a ceremony held at a Shanghai airport last year, the first model of the narrow-body plane was formally handed over to China Eastern. The event was lauded by state media as “an important milestone” for the nation’s aircraft sector.
The C919 has received about 1,200 orders, according to Zhang Yujin, COMAC’s deputy general manager, who spoke in January to the government-backed Shanghai publication The Paper.
According to Zhang at the time, COMAC intended to grow its capacity for yearly manufacturing to 150 models within five years.
