China Shows off Its New Locally-Made Passenger Aircraft

The biggest travel news so far this week is that a Chinese company launched its locally-produced passenger airplane. The C919, manufactured by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), seats 174 passengers, and is aimed at taking market share specifically from Boeing's 737, but also from jets made by Airbus. China just placed USD 55 billion in orders for Airbus and Boeing jets during the last couple of months, so let's see who adopts the C919 first (we're going to guess Air China).

After a flurry of late October announcements from Air China about new routes, things seem to have quieted down in this shoulder season for the Talking Travel desk. That means it's still a good time to travel, at least within Asia, until the end of the month.

A quick survey of prices on Cathay Pacific Airlines' website gave us Beijing-Manila roundtrip for RMB 1,910 including tax; Beijing-Bangkok for RMB 2,710 including tax (which sounds a bit high to us); and Taipei for RMB 2,360, roundtrip including tax, which also sounds slightly high for this time of year.

Finally, for people working in the travel industry, Beijing Capital Airlines, an offshoot of HNA Group (as in Hainan Airlines), appears to be offering big money for pilots, starting at about the USD 180,000 per year range. Check it out here if that's your thing.

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Photo: CNN