China's C919 to break Boeing, Airbus dominance

China's first domestically produced large passenger aircraft C919 is expected to have its engines installed and take to the skies by 2015, China News reported citing a senior engineer.

The narrow-body airliner, designed into three types of cabin configuration, has the biggest capacity of 180 seats in a high-density class. It can also accommodate 168 seats in an economy class and 156 seats in a business and economy mixed one.

Zhang Yanzhong, a member of Chinese academy of engineering and an advisor to the C919 program, said the single-aisle aircraft built by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) has better performance in safety, fuel consumption and passenger experience than the Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, and is likely to break their duopoly of the airliner market.

By the end of 2012, the C919 already had 380 orders, according to the Comac.