Air China operates maiden flight of C919

Air China on Tuesday operated the maiden commercial flight of its first home-made C919 aircraft, becoming the second airline in China to use the aircraft after China Eastern Airlines. This is believed to be a further move to accelerate the commercial operation of the C919 plane.

Flight CA1523 took off from Beijing Capital International Airport and arrived at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport at 1 pm on Tuesday, and the national flag carrier said it plans to use the plane on the Beijing-Shanghai route as well as the route from Beijing to Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang Province.

Air China received its first home-made C919 on August 28 in Shanghai, together with China Southern Airlines, which also received its first C919 on the same day, a milestone for country's first domestically produced large passenger aircraft in entering a new phase of multi-operator deployment.

In an earlier interview with the Global Times, Wang Yan, captain of Air China's first C919 with the registration number B-919X, said that the plane is an excellent aircraft, achieving a very high standard in design and performance, as well as in terms of control and human-computer interaction.

Wang flew the plane back to Beijing on August 29, one day after it was delivered in Shanghai by the Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC), the manufacturer of C919.

The C919 is a large civilian aircraft developed in accordance with international civilian aviation regulations and with independent intellectual property rights, and it is regarded as a model to enhance China's competitiveness in the global aviation market.

Data from China Eastern Airlines, the first global user of the C919, showed that its C919 fleet -- which now has seven planes -- had carried 500,000 passengers as of September 1. It was put into operation on May 28, 2023.

More commercial flights of the C919 show that the plane has met the conditions for large-scale commercial operation and will enter the stage of full operation in the domestic civil aviation market, Lin Zhijie, an independent market watcher, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

China Southern plans to operate its maiden commercial flight of the C919 on September 19, flying from Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong Province to Shanghai, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

So far, nine C919 planes have been delivered to airlines by COMAC.