China’s home-grown C919 plane touches down in Hong Kong

China’s home-grown C919 narrowbody passenger jet landed at the Hong Kong airport at 10.45am on Wednesday, marking the plane’s first commercial scheduled flight outside the mainland.

Flight MU721 of China Eastern Airlines departed the Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport at 8.20am amid a big fanfare and is set to fly back at lunchtime on the same day. The service will be available daily.

Ahead of its departure, a send-off ceremony was held at the Shanghai airport, in which senior representatives from China Eastern and officials from the Civil Aviation Administration of China were present.

The C919, China’s first domestically developed narrowbody passenger jet, is comparable with the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 family of single-aisle aircraft.

It can carry between 158 and 192 passengers and is intended to be used on medium-haul routes with a range of 5,555km (3,452 miles) – equivalent to a five-hour flight.

The plane is scheduled to depart from Hong Kong at 12.55pm and arrive in Shanghai at 3pm.