China’s home-grown C919 alights in Shanghai on first regular route from Beijing

China’s home-grown C919 passenger plane has been flown on the country’s busiest route connecting capital Beijing with the economic hub of Shanghai, a statement voyage for efforts to challenge the dominance of Western giants Boeing and Airbus.

On Tuesday, a C919 took off from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and landed at Beijing Daxing International Airport, according to operator China Eastern Airlines.

The aircraft is expected to return to Shanghai in the evening. The flight will be a regular route, available for the next two weeks.

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The C919 is a narrowbody airliner developed domestically by the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac). It is designed to carry 140 to 210 passengers and competes with Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’ A320.

Following its maiden commercial flight in late May – also from Shanghai to Beijing – China Eastern has regularly operated three models servicing routes from Shanghai to southwestern metropolis Chengdu.

The jet had completed 655 commercial flights and carried nearly 82,000 passengers by the end of last year, according to the airline.

Despite Comac’s 14 years of development for the C919, the jet still uses several Western components for key functionalities, including engines and avionics systems.

In pursuit of self-reliance in aviation technology, China is intensifying its support for domestically produced aircraft, and chartering the plane for the Beijing-Shanghai route – one of the world’s busiest – is a notable commitment.

The aircraft’s occupancy rate approached 76 per cent in December according to data provided by Umetrip, a platform under airline information provider TravelSky Technology Limited.

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The Shanghai-based China Eastern reserved the first five C919s in 2021, and four have been delivered so far.

In September, it announced that it would purchase 100 more in a deal worth up to US$10 billion, the largest single order of the model so far.

According to the deal’s proposed schedule, Comac will deliver five of the 100 planes to China Eastern this year.

In late December, Air China, the country’s flag carrier and its largest by fleet size, announced it would purchase six C919 planes with planned delivery between 2024 and 2025.

Comac is charging US$108 million per jet for the deal, the airline revealed in an exchange filing. This is higher than the catalogue price of US$99 million the manufacturer announced in May 2022.

Variants of the plane are already being developed, including a plateau-suited model with a lower seating capacity of 140 and an expanded version with 210 seats.

China is also looking to expand its aviation footprint overseas, with the Civil Aviation Administration pledging to work with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency to help incorporate its aircraft in the continent’s plans at its annual conference last week.

South China Morning Post