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Boeing Twin-Engine Planes Perform Well in China
China's Southern Airlines announced Friday that its Boeing-777 twin-engine passenger planes have been flying safely over the past five years.
The company bought six such planes in 1995, and became the first Chinese user of this type of aircraft. With nine Boeing-777s now in operation, Southern Airlines is the biggest Chinese owner of the aircraft, which is believed to be the most advanced type in the twin-engine series.
The company put its Boeing-777 planes into operation when it started direct flights from Guangzhou to Los Angeles in 1997, the first time for twin-engine passenger aircraft to fly across the Pacific in the history of the world's civil aviation.
This route has begun to bring profits to Southern Airlines, said a senior manager of the company.
The planes were used on the company's other international routes later, including the one from China to Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Sydney, Australia.
The Boeing-777 fleet has flown a total of 100,000 hours and carried nearly 7.3 million passengers in the past five years, according to the vice-president of the company, Jiang Ping.
He said that the Boeing-777s have greatly helped the company to upgrade its image, because of the planes' safety and high-quality service.
The Boeing-777 is the first twin-engine plane specifically designed for long-distance flight. It now has five models, with a non-stop flight capacity ranging from 9,524 to 11,030 kilometers.
Prior to the debut of the Boeing-777, three-engine and four- engine planes were used for cross-ocean and other long-distance flights.
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