The maiden flight of China’s ARJ21-700 regional jet has been delayed by six months because some of the programme’s key suppliers need to complete equipment testing to meet the requirements of the aircraft’s maker AVIC 1 Commercial Aircraft (ACAC).

ACAC was originally planning to conduct the aircraft’s first flight in March but ACAC president, Luo Ronghuai, says in a statement: “We are disappointed with this delay and we expect to fly the ARJ21-700 in September or October.”

ATI reported on 3 March there would be a delay in the programme but until this statement it was unclear what would be the new time-frame for the aircraft’s first flight.

Luo says “the delay of the planned first flight of the ARJ21-700 is due to the fact that [some of the] suppliers of key systems

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