The world’s first C919 aircraft was delivered to China Eastern on December 9 this year. However, since the C919 is the world’s first aircraft, on the basis of the initial approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, China Eastern Airlines will also carry out more than 100 hours of empty aircraft verification test flights from today to verify and confirm the operational safety, maintenance reliability and various operation support capabilities of the aircraft.

According to data from the Fly Constant App, the first flight is scheduled to depart from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport to Beijing Capital Airport at 13:00 today and return to Shanghai Hongqiao Airport from Beijing Capital Airport at 17:25, with an estimated round-trip flight time of 3.5 hours. This is also the first time that the first delivery aircraft of the C919 painted by China Eastern Airlines has arrived in Beijing.

In addition, China Eastern Airlines will apply to the Civil Aviation Administration of China for the Operation Specification, and the first C919 is expected to meet the regulatory requirements of the Civil Aviation Administration and be put into commercial passenger operation as early as spring 2023. In addition, the remaining four C919 aircraft in the first batch of orders from China Eastern Airlines will be delivered successively over the next two years.

At present, China Eastern Airlines has specially set up a C919 flight department, selecting 24 pilots with rich experience, superb skills and excellent style as the first batch of civil aviation C919 pilots, and the first batch of cabin crew and the first batch of aircraft engineers have also been prepared. At present, China Eastern has prepared 5 pilots, 24 flight attendants, and more than 30 engineers, which is enough to meet the initial verification flight needs. In addition, in order to verify the safe operation capability of the C919 over a wide range and high frequency, China Eastern also selected several typical airports as verification flight sites, including Beijing Capital, Beijing Daxing, Haikou, Nanchang, etc.