(Yicai Global) July 17 -- China Eastern Airlines, one of the country’s big three carriers, has taken delivery of the second C919 aircraft made by Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China.

COMAC delivered the narrow-body single-aisle passenger plane to Shanghai-based China Eastern yesterday, Yicai Global learned. The airline received the first last December. The latest will also fly the Shanghai-Chengdu route.

China Eastern operated the C919’s maiden commercial flight on May 28. As of July 12, the aircraft had completed 87 commercial flights, two maiden journeys between Beijing and Shanghai and 85 between Shanghai and Chengdu, with an average passenger load factor of 80 percent, the airline said yesterday. The C919 has carried a total of nearly 11,100 passengers over 250 hours so far.

The Shanghai-Chengdu route is an east to west journey, and its flight parameters, such as air temperature, are relatively stable, Li Yangmin, general manager of China Eastern, told Yicai Global when asked why the carrier chose that particular route for the C919.

The route is about three hours and has ample passenger flow, two factors suited to newly commissioned aircraft, Li noted, adding that the carrier also has strong logistics capabilities along the route.

It is better to use the C919 on a fixed air route to ensure a safe and smooth flight, Li said. China Eastern will use future C919s on other routes, he said.

China Eastern has eight pilots, 46 cabin crew, 16 maintenance staff, and more than 100 logistics support workers qualified for C919 flights, it said yesterday, adding that the company has been training 21 other pilots and more support service staff for when it receives more C919s later this year.

China’s aviation market is expected to add 9,284 new planes in the two decades ending in 2041, and 6,288 of them will be single-aisle craft, COMAC said in a recent research report. China will likely have 10,007 passenger jets by 2041, accounting for 21.1 percent of the global total and becoming the world’s largest aviation market, COMAC predicted.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione