China's new jet will seek share of world's largest aircraft market

China is set to become the world’s largest market for aircraft and the nation’s first domestically developed large jet will aim to grab a share of that business. The country will need 6,810 aircraft valued at more than $1t in the two decades through 2035, Boeing predicted in September. That would make China the biggest single-country market for planes, and the third-largest as a region, behind Europe and North America. State-backed Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China Ltd. is poised to conduct the first flight of the locally built C919 before the end of May. The test flight is delayed by more than a year. The nation will surpass the US as the world’s largest air-travel market even sooner, around 2024. The number of people flying to, from and within China will jump to 1.3b by 2035, compared with 1.1b for the US, IATA said. Of China’s total plane demand in the 20-year period, 75 percent will be single-aisle -- a category dominated by Boeing’s 737 and Airbus SE’s A320 family that the C919 will be looking to break.<br/>