China Eastern Airlines (CEA), the initial customer for China's first domestically-built large passenger aircraft C919, will launch the plane's first commercial flight on Sunday (May 28), according to information posted on the carrier's app on Friday.
The No.102 C919 plane takes off at Pudong Airport in Shanghai, east China, July 12, 2018. After its first long-distance flight from the final assembly line in Shanghai, the plane landed at Dongying Shengli Airport in east China's Shandong Province. China's C919 large passenger plane project has entered into a new major phase with intensive flight tests in multiple sites around the country. (Photo: Xinhua)
The C919 flight will take off as flight number MU9191 at 10:45 a.m. Beijing Time from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport and arrive in Beijing Capital Airport at 1:10 p.m.
The C919 is developed by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), and it was granted a type certificate by the CAAC last September.
CEA began a 100-hour verification flight for its first C919 aircraft on December 26, 2022 to verify and confirm the aircraft's operational safety.
CEA signed a contract to buy five C919s in March 2021 in the first commercial deal for the plane. The airline received its first C919 jet, numbered B-919A, on December 9, 2022, and the remaining four aircraft will be delivered over the next two years based on the supplier's production and delivery plan.
So far, over 1,200 C919 jetliners have been ordered, according to COMAC.
