By Sophie Yu and Brenda Goh

BEIJING (Reuters) – China Japanese Airways (OTC:), the preliminary buyer for the nation’s homegrown narrow-body jet C919, will launch the aircraft’s first business flight on Sunday, the service’s app confirmed on Friday.

The C919 flight will take off as flight quantity MU9191 at 10:45 a.m. Beijing time (0245 GMT) from Shanghai Hongqiao Worldwide Airport and arrive in Beijing Capital Airport at 1:10 p.m.

It’s going to fly a second time on Sunday afternoon again from Beijing to Shanghai, the app additionally confirmed.

The business operation of the C919 marks a milestone within the nation’s hopes that the aircraft will break the longtime Airbus-Boeing duopoly on the planet’s airline manufacturing trade.

Manufactured by Industrial Aviation Corp of China (COMAC) to rival the Airbus A320neo and Boeing (NYSE:) 737 MAX single-aisle jet households, the C919 has made many flights with out passengers.

The airline and producer have given its first business flight little publicity. However hypothesis that the flight would occur on Sunday arose on Chinese language social media after Shanghai Stamp Amassing Company launched a photograph of a commemorative stamp for the C919 flight that bore a Might 28 date.

China Japanese has not mentioned who will fly on the flight and didn’t reply to Reuters requests for touch upon Friday.

On-line customers mentioned the airline opened an appointment channel earlier this yr on its app for the general public to e book tickets.

China Japanese signed a contract for 5 C919s in March 2021 within the first business deal for the aircraft. The Shanghai-headquartered service acquired its first C919, numbered B-919A, in December and commenced 100 hours of empty plane verification take a look at flights.

China’s Xinhua state information company had mentioned final yr that the C919 would make its first business flight within the spring.

The 164-seat plane comes with a two-class cabin structure, consisting of enterprise and financial system seats.

Though the C919 is assembled in China, it depends closely on Western parts, together with engines and avionics, from firms together with GE, Safran (EPA:) and Honeywell Worldwide (NASDAQ:).