Regional jet ARJ21 enters fresh markets

The ARJ21, China's first homemade regional jetliner, has been in commercial use for more than two years now, and has netted 433 orders from 20 customers.

Now, the developer of the ARJ21 wants to see if it could go into mass production, further expanding the market by being used on more commercial routes, said Lin Zhijie, an aviation industry analyst and columnist at Carnoc.com, one of China's largest civil aviation web portals.

On Dec 22, the ninth test ARJ21 model made its debut flight in Shanghai, becoming the fourth ARJ21 test aircraft to finish its maiden flight in 2017, according to its manufacturer, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or COMAC.