A C919 large passenger aircraft, China's first homegrown large jetliner, passes a water gate after landing at Meilan International Airport in Haikou, south China's Hainan Province, Jan. 2, 2023. (Xinhua/Zhang Liyun)

A senior executive of Commercial Aircraft Corp of China (COMAC) said on Thursday that the company expects to reach an annual production capacity of 150 C919 aircraft in five years.

"China Eastern Airlines has the first batch of orders, and several airlines are vying for our planes," said Zhang Yujin, a deputy general manager of COMAC, the plane's maker.

Zhang said that COMAC plans to reach annual production capacity of 150 in the coming five years, and it has received more than 1,200 orders, according to thepaper.cn. 

There would be a "qualitative change" when the C919's production capacity enters a mature stage, Zhang said, adding that the aircraft will certainly be on the fast track of production to grab market share.

The C919 aircraft had received 1,035 orders from 32 customers as of the end of 2022, according to a report released by the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality on Tuesday.

The world's first C919, which was delivered to China Eastern Airlines in Shanghai on December 9, started a total of 100 hours of verification flights on December 26, laying the foundation for commercial flights, which are expected to begin in the spring of 2023.

Global players are vying for the Chinese aviation market. Boeing Co reported a sharp jump in airplane orders and deliveries in 2022 but trailed Airbus for the fourth straight year as its European rival trounced the US manufacturer more than tenfold in the Chinese market, Reuters reported on Wednesday. 

Boeing delivered 480 airplanes and won 774 net new orders after allowing for cancellations in 2022, while Airbus delivered 661 jets and won 1,078 orders during 2022, or a net total of 820 after allowing for cancellations.

In 2022, Boeing delivered eight planes to carriers in China while Airbus delivered more than 100. In July, China's "Big Three" state airlines agreed to buy 292 Airbus 300 jets, while Boeing said in September it would begin to remarket some of the more than 100 737 MAX jets earmarked for Chinese airlines, Reuters said.

Global Times