China’s Domestically Produced Large Aircraft C919 Makes Its Commercial Maiden Flight to Chongqing with 159 Passengers
“Chongqing is Great! The C919 is Fantastic!”
Along with the cabin announcement, at 10:58 am on December 3rd, the ninth C919 newly introduced by China Eastern Airlines, operating as flight MU5421 from “Shanghai Hongqiao to Chongqing”, successfully arrived at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport with 159 passengers. The airport welcomed the first commercial flight of the domestically produced large aircraft in Chongqing with a “water gate ceremony”.
Reporters from The Paper learned from China Eastern that Chongqing has become the seventh city for its domestically produced C919 aircraft to operate in, following Shanghai, Chengdu, Beijing, Xi’an, Guangzhou, and Taiyuan.
Starting from December 4th, the C919 will operate a daily round-trip flight on the Shanghai-Chongqing route as part of its regular schedule. The outbound flight MU5435 will depart Shanghai Hongqiao at 17:05 every day and arrive in Chongqing at 20:10, while the return flight MU5436 will depart Chongqing at 21:30 and arrive at Shanghai Hongqiao at 23:40. With this, the number of regular commercial routes operated by China Eastern’s C919 fleet has increased to seven, including Shanghai Hongqiao-Chengdu Tianfu, Shanghai Hongqiao-Beijing Daxing, Shanghai Hongqiao-Xi’an, Shanghai Hongqiao-Guangzhou, Beijing Daxing-Xi’an, Shanghai Hongqiao-Taiyuan, and the newly opened Shanghai Hongqiao-Chongqing route.
It is worth mentioning that China Eastern’s ninth C919, with the aircraft registration number B-657T, is the world’s first C919 passenger aircraft equipped with a fully domestically produced cabin LAN service function. Each seat has a “cabin LAN” prompt label, providing passengers with a richer in-flight entertainment experience. Passengers can use their personal electronic devices with WiFi capabilities to connect to the LAN platform after enabling flight mode, making it possible to “play games, watch movies, and more while flying on a domestically produced large aircraft connected to Wi-Fi”.
Chongqing, as the only municipality directly under the central government in the western region, is an important strategic node for the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” and the new western land-sea corridor. With the development of local economic and social undertakings and the continuous expansion of opening up, Chongqing’s strategic position in civil aviation is becoming increasingly important.
China Eastern also disclosed that as the world’s first airline to commercially operate the C919 and currently the largest operator of the C919, its C919 fleet has reached nine aircraft with a total of 105 ordered. Since its commercial maiden flight on May 28, 2023, by November 21, 2024, China Eastern’s C919 aircraft had completed over 5,500 commercial flights, carrying more than 750,000 passengers.
