China aviation reached a milestone this week with the first commercial flight of the Chinese made COMAC ARJ21 jet.
The plane flew fare paying passengers for the first time on a Chengdu Airlines scheduled service from its Chengdu hub to Shanghai.
Launch customer Chengdu Air will deploy the regional jet on the route three times a week, an airline spokesman told AFP.
It completes a long delayed project which has lasted 14 years to produce a homegrown regional jet to compete with the likes of Bombardier and Embraer.
The ARJ21 can seat up to 90 passengers and the inaugural commercial flight took off to great fanfare with footage showing passengers patriotically waving Chinese flags.
The aicraft has not yet secured US Federal Aviation Administration certification allowing it to operate in US airspace but state owned COMAC says it has more than 270 orders from mostly domestic customers.
