President Xi Jinping has hailed the project as a triumph of Chinese innovation,while on Sunday state media trumpeted the plane as a symbol of industrial prowess and national pride.
“After generations of endeavour,we finally broke the West’s aviation monopoly and rid ourselves of the humiliation of ’800 million shirts for one Boeing’,”Beijing Daily wrote,referring to the early years of economic reform around 40 years ago when China manufactured mainly low-value goods.
The C919 took off at 10.32am local time from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport where COMAC and China Eastern Airlines are headquartered,and landed two hours later at Beijing Capital Airport,showed flight tracker app Variflight.
“I’m confident about the plane. The flight was smoother than expected,” one of about 130 passengers told state broadcaster CCTV as he disembarked.
The plane is scheduled to return to Shanghai on Sunday,then make a longer two-way flight to the southwestern city of Chengdu on Monday.
Lv Boyuan,a 21-year-old student and aviation enthusiast,was at Shanghai’s airport on Sunday to fly to Chengdu from where he planned to return on the C919 the following day.