Late May 2023 marked the inaugural commercial flight of China’s first homegrown jet airliner, the Comac C919.
In a carefully planned symbolic event, China Eastern Airlines flight MU9191 took off from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport — where US President Richard Nixon first arrived during his tour of China in 1972 — and landed in Beijing, the mainland’s capital.
Perhaps no other plane shaped post-Second World War international aviation politics more than the DC-3. Roosevelt also presented DC-3 aircraft as gifts to strategically important states. The most notable instance was to King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, symbolising diplomacy and friendship after Roosevelt’s historic meeting with the King along the Suez Canal on Feb 14, 1945.
Currently, only regional Chinese airlines have ordered the C919, intending to use them for short, domestic routes. For Beijing to parade the aircraft as a technological success and symbol of prestige internationally, the C919 needs to be operated by airlines beyond the Chinese mainland. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has scourged the Russian civil aviation sector with sanctions, no-fly zones and aircraft impounds. Iran’s commercial aviation sector has suffered due to years of conflict, poor infrastructure, neglect and under-investment. International sanctions have made it nearly impossible to purchase aircraft parts, let alone new aircraft.
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