An ARJ21 aircraft takes off from Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan Province on August 21, 2024. Photo: Courtesy of COMAC

China's indigenously developed regional jetliner, the ARJ21, started month-long demonstration flights across the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau on Wednesday, a further step in charting future ultra high-altitude routes for the aircraft.

The plane took off from Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport and arrived at Hongyuan Airport in Hongyuan county of the Aba prefecture, Southwest China's Sichuan Province after a 50-minute flight.

The ARJ21 aircraft will use Chengdu, Xining and Lhasa, as operating bases, and fly to multiple high-altitude airports in Southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region, provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu, fully verifying the adaptability of the aircraft to high-altitude airports, according to the information the producer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) shared with Global Times on Wednesday. 

According to the Civil Aviation Administration of China, airports with an altitude of 2,438 meters or above are classified as high-altitude airports. There are 25 high-altitude airports in China, accounting for more than 50 percent of the total number of high-altitude airports in the world.

The plateau area has thin air, complex terrain and changeable weather, which places extremely high demands on aircraft performance, crew qualifications and operational support capabilities. 

An ARJ21 aircraft arrives at Hongyuan Airport in Hongyuan county of the Aba prefecture, Southwest China's Sichuan Province after a 50-minute flight from Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport on August 21, 2024. Photo: Courtesy of COMAC

On July 2 of 2024, an ARJ21 aircraft from Chengdu Airlines launched the first high-plateau air route in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, connecting southern Xinjiang's Kashgar Laining International Airport with Khunjerab airport in Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, a land port on the China-Pakistan border situated in the Pamirs region of south Xinjiang. 

So far, the ARJ21 flying this route is in good shape, COMAC said. 

COMAC said it took into consideration the air transport needs of high-altitude airports when designing and developing the ARJ21 aircraft. It added that this round of demonstration flights will further verify the aircraft's performance flying at high altitudes, paving the way for domestically-made commercial aircraft to operate more high-altitude routes.

A pioneer in Chinese commercial airplanes, the ARJ21 entered commercial service in June 2016.

Global Times