COMAC held a joint ceremony at its Shanghai (Pudong) facility to deliver the first C919 commercial jets to Air China and China Southern Airlines on August 28.
They will join China Eastern Airlines, the launch customer for the wholly domestically developed aircraft that is a competitor to the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737.
The C919 can seat around 170 passengers and entered revenue service with China Eastern in May 2023, which currently has seven aircraft in its fleet.
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China’s three major airlines, all state-owned, have firm orders for more than 300 C919s, which are expected to take some time to deliver as COMAC is not yet at a high production rate.
At China Southern, the first C919 was registered as B-919J and is configured with 164 seats, with eight in business class and 156 in economy, including Pearl “premium economy” seats.
Air China, on the other hand, has a more comfortable main cabin configuration, with eight seats in business class and only 150 seats in economy. The first C919 was registered as B-919X.
The next customer for the C919 is expected to be Suparna Airlines, part of the Hainan group, which currently has a fleet of 10 Boeing 737-800s and two 747-400 freighters.
The carrier will be the first private operator of the C919, of which it plans to have 30 jets, the first of which (registered as B-919T) to be received in the fourth quarter.
