On December 9, 2022, a ceremony was held at Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai to hand over to China Eastern Airlines the first serial Chinese medium-haul passenger aircraft C919, designed and built by the Chinese state-owned civil aviation company Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC). The first serial C919 (serial number 10107, registration number B-919A, at the test stage carried a temporary registration B-001J) made its first flight at Pudong Airport in Shanghai on May 14, 2022 and has now been handed over to the launch customer, marking the achievement of a landmark milestone for the Chinese aircraft industry. It is expected that the first production aircraft in the first quarter of 2023 will be put into regular operation at One-Two-Three Airlines, a subsidiary of China Eastern Airlines. The aircraft is made in a 164-seat layout (eight seats in business class and 156 in economy class). The start of actual deliveries of serial C919 is expected from 2023.
The first serial model of the Chinese medium-haul passenger aircraft SOMAS S919 (serial number 10107, registration number B-919A), delivered to the Chinese airline China Eastern Airlines. Shanghai, 09.12.2022 (c) SOMASNarrow-body C919 aircraft in the passenger capacity class of 158-190 seats (that is, similar to the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, the main claimed variant of the C919 capacity is 168 seats)
It was developed and produced by the State Association of Civil Aviation SOMAS, specially created in China in 2008, for which the C919 became the first full-fledged project. In fact, all the structural elements of the aircraft are either manufactured at various enterprises of the Chinese state aircraft corporation AVIC, or imported, and only the final assembly is carried out at the constructed SOMAS enterprise at Pudong Airport in Shanghai. The C919 is the first mainline passenger aircraft created in China after the unsuccessful and remaining non-serial Y-10 aircraft, built in the number of three prototypes in the early 1980s.
The C919 aircraft is equipped with two CFM International LEAP 1C engines, and in the future it is planned to be equipped with Chinese CJ-1000A engines also created under the auspices of SOMAS. Bench tests of the CJ-1000A prototypes were started in 2018, but flight tests of this engine have not yet begun.
The first flight of the first flight prototype C919 (serial number 10101, registration number B-001A) took place in Shanghai on May 5, 2017. The first flight of the second prototype C919 (serial number 10102, registration number B-001C) took place on December 17, 2017, and the first flight of the third prototype (serial number 10103, registration number B-001D) took place on December 29, 2018. During 2019, three more C919 flight prototypes were built (serial numbers 10104, 10105 and 10106), and thus the total number of experimental machines involved in the tests was six.
Certification flights of the C919 as part of the tests were completed on July 3, 2022, and on September 29, 2022, the aircraft officially received a type certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The aircraft was certified in the basic version according to the airworthiness standards CCAR-25 CAAC, harmonized with the American standards FAR-25. On November 29, the aircraft received the production certificate of the CAAC. In general, the testing and certification process was delayed, and the CAAC certification, and then the delivery of the first production C919 aircraft were made about a year late from the last planned dates.
According to official COMAC data, the portfolio of orders and options for C919 for October 2022 included 815 aircraft (including 349 in supposedly "firm" contracts) from 28 Chinese air carriers and leasing companies. In November, at the Airshow China 2022 in Zhuhai, it was announced that during the airshow, seven leasing companies signed contracts with SOMAS for the purchase of another 300 new C919 aircraft.
In March 2021, China Eastern Airlines and COMAC officially signed a contract for the purchase of the first batch of five C919 aircraft with delivery dates that made China Eastern Airlines the launch operator of the aircraft. After the transfer of the first aircraft that has now taken place, the remaining four C919 aircraft will be delivered to China Eastern Airlines in 2023-2024. From the published documents of the airline, it became known that the price of one C919 board for it was $ 99 million.
According to the information published by SOMAS, it plans to deliver six serial C919 aircraft in 2023, to increase production to 36 aircraft per year in 2026, and to 64 aircraft per year in 2029.
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The first serial model of the Chinese medium-haul passenger aircraft SOMAS S919 (serial number 10107, registration number B-919A), delivered to the Chinese airline China Eastern Airlines. Shanghai, 09.12.2022 (c) SOMAS and www.chinadaily.com.cn
