1st Chinese Commercial Flight Comac's C919 compete with Boeing & Airbus?

The nation's long-running effort to compete with Western rivals in the air has reached a significant turning point with the completion of China's first domestically made passenger jet's first commercial flight.China's state-owned television network CCTV said that China Eastern Airlines Flight MU9191 from Shanghai "arrived smoothly" in Beijing just after 12:30pm (04:30 GMT) on Sunday, some 40 minutes earlier than scheduled.

 

Beijing expects the commercial C919 aircraft to compete with global products like the Boeing 737 MAX and the Airbus A320. As relations with the West worsen, its first indigenous airliner with mass market potential would reduce the nation's reliance on foreign technology. But a lot of its components are still imported.State media lauded the plane as a sign of economic power and national pride, and President Xi Jinping praised the project as a success of Chinese innovation.

 

The C919 is the product of state-backed Commercial Aviation Corp of China (COMAC), which began developing the jet 15 years ago.