In live broadcasts, a state-owned Comac plane takes 130 passengers from Shanghai to Beijing; Boeing congratulated via Weibo
The Chinese press woke up with images of the first commercial flight of the C919, an aircraft developed by Comac to compete with the European Airbus and the American Boeing. The China Eastern Airlines plane departed at 10:32 am from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport to Beijing Capital International Airport.
Under the same headline “Took off!”, on the website of the tabloid Huangiu, the Chinese version of the Global Times, from Beijing, and on the Guancha portal, from Shanghai, both with videos generated by the state-owned CCTV network (image below), the plane transported about of 130 passengers for two and a half hours
In later statements, “Enough without problems”. Xin Jing Bao (Beijing News) made headlines with videos of its own. He showed his reporter with his ticket when boarding and later, from the runway, the crew waving the Chinese flag at the plane’s door. In the end, live from inside the cabin, the journalist showed the plane taxiing in the Chinese capital, the “water salute” it received and the applause from the passengers when it stopped.
In the words of Pengpai Xinwen (The Paper), from Shanghai, “before the C919, the global market was dominated by Airbus and Boeing, now they have been challenged: in addition to A (Airbus) and B (Boeing), now there is C (Comac )”.
The American company, which seeks to recover market in China, congratulated the Chinese competitor and the airline on its profile on Weibo. Comac thanked you with a heart emoji. And a netizen reacted, with a laughing emoji: “Actually, you both know in your heart that whoever sells well is not good for the other party!”.
This Monday (29), China Eastern, headquartered in Shanghai, starts with the C919 the regular service between Hongqiao and Chengdu Tianfu International Airport, in the southwest, a three-hour journey away. Economy class tickets, according to Pengpai Xinwen, are being sold at 919 yuan, about 650 reais.
HONG KONG WITHOUT BLANKET
In an incident that took over social and mainstream media, three Cathay Airways flight attendants were recorded talking to passengers who only speak Mandarin on a flight from Chengdu to Hong Kong, amidst laughter: “If you can’t say ‘blanket’ [blanket in English ], you can’t have it” (audio below).
Shares tumbled, the Hong Kong company’s CEO apologized three times, as did the city government. It was the most read story by the South China Morning Post for the week and one of the most read by Bloomberg. Hong Kong has just emerged from recession thanks to Chinese tourists.
A Guancha columnist raised the possibility that “China’s civil aviation could open direct flights from Shenzhen to Europe and the US”, which would lead Cathay to “lose half of its business”. Neighboring Hong Kong, Shenzhen now has twice the population.
