Air China has operated the first scheduled international commercial flight of the COMAC C919, flying from Beijing Capital International Airport to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, on 12 August. The narrowbody landed in the Mongolian capital at about 16:58 local time after departing Beijing in the mid-afternoon, opening the aircraft’s first regular passenger service beyond China’s borders.
The daily round trip, numbered CA723/CA724, extends the C919’s commercial network after its entry into service in May 2023. Until now, the jet had mainly flown domestic routes and services to and from Hong Kong. COMAC said the type had been deployed across 57 routes in 25 cities and had carried more than 7.5 million passenger trips by 10 August.
The Beijing-Ulaanbaatar service gives China’s domestically developed single-aisle programme a visible international milestone as it seeks a wider market against Boeing 737-class aircraft. It also shows Air China using the C919 on a cross-border route with daily operations rather than a one-off delivery or demonstration flight.