The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) announced on Saturday that the test flight programme for its C919 single-aisle airliner had been completed. This was the final step before the aircraft could be certified by China’s aviation regulators. The programme involved six test examples of the C919.

The first production example for a customer airline made its maiden flight in May. That airline is C919 launch customer, China Eastern Airlines, which has placed firm orders for five of the new airliners. According to its website, Comac currently has orders for 815 C919s from 28 customers. However, leading aerospace journal FlightGlobal reports that Comac currently has “commitments” for more than 300 of the airliners.

The C919 is intended as a rival to Airbus’ A320neo-family and Boeing’s 737 MAX-family of single-aisle airliners. Comac reports that the C919 is able to carry between 158 and 168 passengers. It has a range (depending on cabin layout and payload) of between 4 075 km and 5 555 km. Outside observers believe that the C919 will be less efficient that either of the two Western airliner families, but that the Chinese government is perfectly capable of ordering Chinese airlines to buy the home-grown type.

The C919 programme has suffered several significant delays. It was launched in 2008, with the aim of achieving first flight in 2014 and commercial entry-into-service (EIS) in 2016. But China had never attempted to develop a modern jetliner of this size before, and technical and supply chain difficulties were encountered. The type actually made its first flight in mid-2017.

Further delays were caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and by deteriorating relations with the US. Comac had previously hoped to have the airliner certified by the end of last year. Now it hopes that it will achieve certification by the end of this year. EIS would follow next year, or in 2024.

Although a Chinese design and a Chinese project, the C919 makes extensive use of Western technology and systems. It is, for example, powered by two CFM International LEAP-1C turbofan engines (CFM is a Franco-US joint venture). Washington has imposed strict restrictions on the export of ‘dual use’ technologies to China (that is, technologies developed for civilian applications but which could also be used in military ones), especially those intended for use by companies with, in American eyes, ties with the Chinese armed forces. Comac is one of those companies.