China Eastern Airlines has taken delivery of its 7th COMAC C919
COMAC delivered its 7th C919 jet to China Eastern Airlines (CEA) on July 29. The aircraft landed at Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport after taking off from Shanghai Pudong International Airport, where it was manufactured.
The B-919H aircraft is the second in an order for 100 jets that CEA placed in September last year. So far, only CEA has received the narrow-body jet with 164 seats.
The second customer to receive the C919 is expected to be Air China, which placed an order for 100 planes earlier this year.
In commenting on the delivery of the aircraft, China Eastern Airlines also announced the expansion of its C919 flights. Among them is the unprecedented flight between Beijing (Daxing) and Xi’an.
The C919 currently flies from Shanghai to Chengdu, Beijing, Xi’an and Guangzhou.
Aircraft already affects orders from Airbus and Boeing in China
The homegrown commercial aircraft is the most advanced ever developed in China and offers performance similar to the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320.
Despite the Chinese design, many of its components are of Western origin, such as the avionics and Leap-1C engines, supplied by CFM.
In the last 10 months alone, the C919 has accumulated 300 firm orders from the three largest Chinese airlines, not coincidentally state-owned companies such as the manufacturer COMAC.
Despite this, the drop in orders for foreign narrow-body aircraft among Chinese customers is already noticeable, especially for the 737 MAX, which has not closed any deals for some time.
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Ricardo Meier
Creator of the website that started in 1996 as a magazine. He also writes on Brazilian websites AUTOO, MOTOO and MetrôCPTM.
