China's first self-developed narrow-body jet C919 welcomes its 500,000th passenger aboard its flight from Chengdu Tianfu International Airport to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport on September 1. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

China's first self-developed narrow-body jet C919 welcomed its 500,000th passenger on Sunday in its flight from Chengdu Tianfu International Airport to Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport, according to C919's first global customer China Eastern Airlines.

Since launching commercial flights of the very first C919 on May 28, 2023, China Eastern's C919 fleet has accumulated more than 10,000 hours of safe flight operation as of Sunday and served more than 500,000 passengers via over 3,700 commercial flights.