The company developing China’s first home-grown widebody passenger jet – the C929 – is aiming to see it make its maiden commercial flight by 2035, foreign partners have been told at this week’s Paris Air Show, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
The time frame, although longer than previous estimates, was in line with the “long-haul” one that Boeing and Airbus used when developing their first widebodies and reflected Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China’s (Comac) “prudence” and emphasis on safety, the person, who requested anonymity, added.
Comac told its partners this week that it expects the C929 – which is likely to resemble the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 series – to be certified in China by 2032.
“Currently we plan to achieve TC (type certificate) in 2032,” a senior Comac manager said during a presentation at the air show.
“The C929 has entered the detailed design phase … this is our future. We would like to offer a new twin-aisle aircraft to our customers.”
The C919, Comac’s first mainline narrowbody jet, went into commercial operation in China in May 2023, less than a year after it was certified by the Civil Aviation Administration of China in September 2022.
The widebody C929 will carry up to 440 people and have a maximum range of 12,000km – roughly the distance from Shanghai to New York.
