Chinese aircraft firm Comac hopes to double production of C919 passenger planes this year

China’s leading aircraft manufacturer hopes to deliver twice the number of its C919 passenger jets this year as it scales up production to meet demand.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac) has delivered 15 C919s since commercial operations started in May 2023, with the latest being delivered to China Eastern on New Year’s Eve.

“Comac anticipates it will dispatch 30 units of the C919 this year with a production capacity scale of up to 50 units,” the company’s vice-president Shen Bo said on Friday, according to news portal ThePaper.cn.

The state-owned company is facing an extensive backlog, with domestic and international carriers ordering more than a thousand planes, according to Chinese media reports.

Major domestic carriers such as China Eastern, China Southern and Air China each want to have more than a hundred of the planes by 2031.