First C919 jetliner ready to be delivered by 2021

The Commercial Aircraft Corp of China, or COMAC, will be ready to deliver the country's first home-built passenger jet C919 by 2021, said the aircraft's chief designer.

"There will be four more aircrafts for flight tests in addition to the current two," said Wu Guanghui, the chief designer of the C919, on the sidelines of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress. "It will take three to four years before we can deliver the aircrafts to China Eastern Airlines in 2021."

Wu said the narrow-body passenger jet C919 is among the mainstream aircraft models in the world and very popular in the market.

By using high-performing materials and advanced technology, he said the C919 is a very safe, environmentally friendly, comfortable and economic model.

"The C919 is highly automated," he said. "And we used aluminum-lithium alloy in the aircraft, which took COMAC a decade to develop."