A Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane is delivered to Air China at a ceremony held at Boeing Zhoushan 737 Completion and Delivery Center in Zhoushan, east China's Zhejiang province, Dec 15, 2018. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
ZHOUSHAN — Boeing Zhoushan 737 Completion and Delivery Center in east China's Zhejiang province delivered its first plane of the 737 family to Air China on Saturday.
The delivery marked the start of operations for the Boeing-COMAC joint plant
The delivery marked the start of operations for the joint plant of the US aerospace giant and its Chinese partner Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd (COMAC). The plant is the first facility Boeing has outside the United States.
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The 737 MAX 8 airplane was assembled at Boeing's Renton plant in the United States. It flew to China's coastal city of Zhoushan and received the completion works.
"The moment signifies our growing partnership with China that stretches back over nearly half a century," said Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
Zhao Yuerang, president of COMAC, said this opened a new era of the collaboration between the two airplane manufacturers.
The Boeing Zhoushan project includes two parts — a Boeing 737 completion center and the delivery center.
A Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane is delivered to Air China at a ceremony held at Boeing Zhoushan 737 Completion and Delivery Center in Zhoushan, east China's Zhejiang province, Dec 15, 2018. (PHOTO / XINHUA)
In the Boeing-COMAC joint completion center, Boeing 737 family aircraft will receive interior installation, painting, maintenance and delivery.
It took only around 20 months for the Boeing Zhoushan project to put into operation after breaking ground in May 2017.
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Its maximum capacity is the annual completion and delivery of 100 airplanes of the 737 family.
In 2017, Boeing delivered 202 new airplanes to Chinese customers, representing 26 percent of its global commercial aircraft deliveries.
China is now the world's second largest civil aviation market. By the end of last year, the country's in-service civil aviation fleet reached 3,296. The International Air Transport Association forecasts that China will be the largest civil aviation market by the mid-2020s.
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