China Debuts First Passenger Jet, Aviation Goals

On Monday, Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC) debuted its single-aisle C919 passenger jet to a crowd of several thousand from its manufacturing and assembly center in Pudong, Shanghai. Bloomberg said the aircraft was China’s first prototype for a locally-built passenger jet made to compete with global leaders Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE, which currently supplies much of the global 100-seater passenger aircraft market.

In a speech, China’s civil aviation administration Li Jiaxiang said, “The air transportation industry of China cannot completely rely on imports. A great nation must have its own large commercial aircraft.”

Xinhuanet said that once the C919 aircraft passes for commercial use, the 158-seater airplane with a standard range of 4,075 kilometers could very well cover routes from China to all over the world.

According to COMAC, it has already accepted 517 orders from 21 domestic and foreign customers. The model presented on Monday is purportedly the basic version, but COMAC expressed its intention to release extended, shortened, cargo and business versions in the near future.