Air charter

Air charter is the business of renting an entire aircraft (i.e., chartering) as opposed to individual aircraft seats (i.e., purchasing a ticket through a traditional airline). While the airlines specialize in selling transportation by the seat, air charter companies focus on individual private aircraft and itineraries, urgent or time-sensitive cargo, air ambulance service, and other forms of ad hoc air transportation. Some air charter companies offer a large variety of aircraft, such as helicopters and business jets. Charter jet categories include turbo props, light jets, mid-size jets, super mid-size jets, heavy jets, and airliners.

There are an estimated 15,000 business jets available for charter in the worldwide fleet. The US market is the largest and the European market is the second largest, with growing activity in the Middle East, Asia, and Central America.

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China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.

Comac C919

The Comac C919 is a planned family of 158–174 seat narrow-body twin-engine jet airliners to be built by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac). It will be the largest commercial airliner designed and built in China since the defunct Shanghai Y-10. Its first flight is expected to take place in 2016, with first deliveries scheduled for late 2018. Roll-out ceremony was held in Shanghai on November 2, 2015.

The C919 forms part of China's long-term goal to break Airbus and Boeing's duopoly, and is intended to compete against Airbus A320neo, Boeing 737 MAX, and other next-generation single-aisle airliners.

Development

Comac applied for a type certificate for the aircraft from the Civil Aviation Authority of China on 28 October 2010. The company plans to conduct the first flight of the C919 in 2016, with deliveries beginning in 2018, whereas Marwan Lahoud, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer of Airbus Group, assumes a competition outside China around 2020.

In June 2011 COMAC and Irish low-cost airline Ryanair signed an agreement to co-operate on the development of the C919 On 24 November 2011, Comac announced the completion of the joint definition phase, marking the end of the preliminary design phase for the C919. The company said it planned to cut the first metal for the aircraft in December 2011, with estimated completion of the detailed design phase in 2012.

Airliner

An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an aircraft intended for carrying multiple passengers or cargo in commercial service.

The largest airliners are wide-body jets. These aircraft are frequently called twin-aisle aircraft because they generally have two separate aisles running from the front to the back of the passenger cabin. These aircraft are usually used for long-haul flights between airline hubs and major cities with many passengers.

A smaller, more common class of airliners is the narrow-body or single aisle aircraft. These smaller airliners are generally used for short to medium-distance flights with fewer passengers than their wide-body counterparts.

Regional airliners typically seat fewer than 100 passengers and may be powered by turbofans or turboprops. These airliners are the non-mainline counterparts to the larger aircraft operated by the major carriers, legacy carriers, and flag carriers and are used to feed traffic into the large airline hubs. These regional routes then form the spokes of a hub-and-spoke air transport model.

United States

Coordinates: 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100

The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major territories and various possessions. The 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., are in central North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwestern part of North America and the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. At 3.8 million square miles (9.842 million km²) and with over 320 million people, the country is the world's third or fourth-largest by total area and the third most populous. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The geography and climate of the United States are also extremely diverse, and the country is home to a wide variety of wildlife.