Chinese made jetliner takes off with Indonesian carrier

A domestically-made regional jetliner, the ARJ21-700, was delivered to its first overseas operator, TransNusa Airlines, an Indonesian airline company, on Sunday.

This has great significance in boosting China's Belt and Road initiative, according to the ARJ21's developer, Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corp of China.

Founded in 2005 and headquartered in the Indonesia capital, Jakarta, TranNusa Airlines is a low-cost airline company. It mainly operates home and abroad routes to and from regions near Indonesia.

The ARJ21 regional jet, with 95 seats, all in economic-class, is suitable for regional flight routes.

The jet's cabin interior, passenger seats and exterior painting are all customized, and the passenger seats are made of leather fabric.

There is an Indonesian national flag pattern painted on the jet body, and the exterior color designed is based on the three colors of TranNusa' LOGO: blue, representing the sky; yellow, human beings, and green, the earth.

Xu Bingnan / Ti Gong

The ARJ21-700 is China's first turbofan regional passenger jetliner designed with a range of 3,700 kilometers.

It has good resistance to high temperatures and crosswinds, and is well suited to night operation.

The ARJ21 was put into commercial service by Chengdu Airlines in June 2016, and has since been purchased by other domestic carriers, including Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines.

Nearly 100 ARJ21 have been delivered to aviation service carriers, and operated in more than 300 flight routes as of now. And more than 5.6 million passengers have flown on them safely.

COMAC will provide life-cycle customer service and operation support to TransNusa, it said.