SHANGHAI, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's homegrown regional jetliner, the ARJ21, launched its first international service on Saturday, completing a maiden flight from the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East in about one hour.
The aircraft owned by Chengdu Airlines will fly between the two cities on Mondays and Fridays starting next week.
Chengdu Airlines is offering a much faster non-stop service to passengers in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, who earlier needed to transfer mainly in Beijing, Shanghai or Seoul.
The direct service will help boost economic and trade and people-to-people exchanges and deepen cooperation between the two cities.
The first ARJ21 airplane was delivered to Chengdu Airlines in 2015 and conducted its first commercial flight on June 28, 2016. The airline now has a fleet of 47 aircraft, including 15 ARJ21 airplanes. Developed by the Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC), the ARJ21 is China's first indigenously developed regional passenger jetliner. The COMAC has so far delivered 19 ARJ21 airplanes to its customers.
The ARJ21 is designed with 78 to 90 seats and has a range of 3,700 km. It can fly in alpine and plateau regions and is adaptive to various airport conditions.
