A home-made plane made its maiden flight (Picture provided by China Express)

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- At 8:30 am on November 27, an ARJ21 aircraft named “Huaxiatongcheng” took off from Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport. At 10:10 am, the aircraft landed smoothly in Yan’an, marking the successful maiden flight of China Express’ first home-produced passenger airplane and its official launch into commercial operations.

The ARJ21 aircraft was intimately called “Ajiao” by netizens. It is a regional turbofan jet aircraft with independent intellectual property rights developed by domestic independent design, independent research and development, with a brand-new mechanism and management model, and a comprehensive application of digital design-manufacturing technology. The range is from 2225 km to 3700 km. The first ARJ21 introduced by China Express has 95 seats and adopts a 3+2 seat layout, which is mainly used to meet the use of radial routes from central cities to surrounding small and medium cities.

Up to now, China Express has 53 aircraft, including Airbus A320, Bombardier CRJ900, ARJ21, and has opened 165 international and domestic routes, of which the proportion of regional routes exceeds 95%. It is reported that China Express’ ARJ21 aircraft will fly Chongqing － Yan’an － Taiyuan, Chongqing － Pudong, Shanghai, Chongqing － Nanyang － Fuzhou and other routes.

The specific schedule is as follows:

(Translated by Luo Juan, Fathom Language Limited)