Aviation Goals

Pilots from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have recently been conducting test flights of China’s COMAC C919 airliner in Shanghai. The South China Morning Post reports that these flights are part of COMAC’s push to obtain certification from Western regulators and gain access to international markets. EASA confirmed to Reuters that the tests are part of its standard “validation activities.”

COMAC, China’s state-owned aircraft manufacturer, launched the C919 program in 2008 with the goal of competing directly with the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 families. So far, however, the aircraft remains restricted to the Chinese domestic market because it lacks certification from major Western authorities like EASA and the FAA. It received its Chinese type certificate in September 2022 and entered commercial service with China Eastern Airlines the following year.

The company first applied for EASA certification in 2019, but the process was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was restarted in 2023, and in 2025 EASA indicated that full certification could still take three to six years.