According to local Chinese media outlets, the nation’s first domestically produced narrow-body jet, the C919, completed its first commercial flight Sunday. In Beijing’s struggle to compete with the global aircraft manufacturing majors, the flight is being couched as a milestone.

Built by the Commercial Aviation Corporation of China (Comac), the jet lifted off in Shanghai, and “arrived smoothly” just after 04:30 GMT on Sunday in Beijing, landing 40 minutes ahead of schedule.

Zhang Xiaoguang, director of marketing and sales at Comac, said, “The first commercial flight is a coming-of-age ceremony of the new aircraft, and C919 will get better and better if it stands the test of the market.”

State-run Eastern Airlines ordered five of the jets in March of 2021. In December the first aircraft was delivered, with the remainder of the order scheduled to be delivered later this year.

With a range of up to 5,555 km, (3,452 miles) the C919 features a two-class cabin layout, with business and economy seating. The plane is being marketed as potentially cracking the dominance of the single-aisle jets produced by Boeing and Airbus.

The C919 aircraft program was greenlit by Beijing 15 years ago, however in the interim a number of technical and regulatory setback plagued the project, including US export controls which limited the availability of required components. Although the plane is assembled in China, various components, such as flight controls and its jet engines are produced in the West.

In 2011, production of the first aircraft was begun, and in 2015 the first prototype was ready. The C919 had its first test flight in 2017, and it has made several more test flights since then.

Comac, which has said in intends to produce 150 jets per year, reported that it has received over 1,200 orders for the C919 so far.