SHANGHAI: The first large made-in-China passenger plane successfully completed its maiden test flight on Friday, marking a key milestone on the country’s ambitious journey to compete with the world’s leading aircraft makers.
The narrow-body C919 jet — white with green and blue stripes — disappeared into the clouds after taking off from Pudong International Airport (PIA) in the commercial hub Shanghai as a crowd of thousands cheered, including top officials.
It successfully landed some 80 minutes later and the five-member crew was handed flowers, with captain Cai Jun describing the flight as “very satisfactory.”
Built by state-owned aerospace manufacturer Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), the plane represents nearly a decade of effort in a government-mandated drive to reduce dependence on European consortium Airbus and US aerospace giant Boeing.
“China’s big commercial jet project made a huge breakthrough. It is a major milestone in China’s aviation market,” China’s State Council said in a statement.
State media said the plane flew at an altitude of around 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), some 7,000 meters lower than a regular trip and at a speed of more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) per hour.
While delayed since last year, the flight is the latest sign of China’s growing ambition and technical skill, coming one week after the country launched its first domestically made aircraft carrier and docked a cargo spacecraft with an orbiting space lab.
China has dreamed of building its own civil aircraft since the 1970s when it began work on the narrow-body Y-10, which was eventually deemed unviable and never entered service.
President Xi Jinping himself has endorsed the new project. China is a massive battleground for Boeing and Airbus, with the country’s travel market expected to surpass the US by 2024, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
Airbus and Boeing estimate that Chinese airlines will need between 6,000-6,800 aircraft at a total price of around $1 trillion.
Both companies congratulated COMAC on the flight.
The twin-engine C919, whose name sounds like the Chinese word for “everlasting,” can seat 168 passengers in an arrangement similar to other narrow-body jets: Three white-velvet upholstered seats line each side of its central aisle.
It has a range of 5,555km and has received 570 orders, almost all from domestic airlines.
COMAC made two planes for the test flight and it expects to produce four more by 2019, said Bao Pengli, deputy head of Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Co. (SAMC), COMAC’s production arm.
The Shanghai-based firm aims to become one of the world’s leading civil aircraft manufacturer in the next three years, seeking to have the C919 and its ARJ21, a smaller 90-seat regional jet, both certified to fly internationally.
But it will be some time before the C919 is ready to compete with the top-selling products of the world’s aviation giants, said Bao.
“The biggest challenge is that the whole manufacturing experience still needs improvement because this is the first time China is making a primary route plane,” Bao said.
The C919 will need to pass more tests to obtain Chinese airworthiness certification and COMAC hopes to get the green light from the US and European regulators.
The ARJ21 plane, which entered service in 2016, several years late, is currently restricted to flying domestic routes as it still lacks the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification.
Another challenge for the C919 is earning consumers’ trust, said Shukor Yusof, an analyst with Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics.
“It will take some time for customers around the world to be comfortable buying Chinese airplanes,” he said, adding: “It is not going to happen in the next 10 years.”
“It is going to be incredibly tough not because it is not a good product. But because you need to get comfort and credibility to the product among potential clients, potential customers.”
China’s homemade passenger jet aces first flight
China’s homemade passenger jet aces first flight
Saudi-built AI takes on financial crime
- Mozn’s FOCAL reflects the Kingdom’s growing fintech ambitions
RIYADH: As financial institutions face increasingly complex threats from fraud and money laundering, technology companies are racing to build systems that can keep pace with evolving risks.
One such effort is FOCAL, an AI-powered compliance and fraud prevention platform developed by Riyadh-based enterprise artificial intelligence company Mozn.
Founded in 2017, Mozn was established with a focus on building AI technology tailored to regional market needs and regulatory environments. Over time, the company has expanded its reach beyond Saudi Arabia, developing advanced AI solutions used by financial institutions in multiple markets. It has also gained international recognition, including being listed among the World’s Top 250 Fintech Companies for the second consecutive year.
In January 2026, Mozn’s flagship product, FOCAL, was named a Category Leader in Chartis Research’s RiskTech Quadrant 2025 for both AML Transaction Monitoring and KYC (Know Your Customer) Data and Solutions, placing it among 10 companies globally to receive this designation.
Malik Alyousef, co-founder of Mozn and chief technology officer of FOCAL, told Arab News that the platform initially focused on core anti-money laundering functions when development began in 2018. These included customer screening, watchlists, and transaction monitoring to support counter-terrorism financing efforts and the detection of suspicious activity.
As financial crime tactics evolved, the platform expanded into fraud prevention. According to Alyousef, this shift introduced a more proactive model, beginning with device risk analysis and later incorporating tools such as device fingerprinting, behavioral biometrics, and transaction fraud detection.
More recently, FOCAL has moved toward platform convergence through its Financial Crime Intelligence layer, a vendor-neutral framework designed to bring together multiple systems into a single interface for investigation and reporting. The approach allows institutions to gain a consolidated view without replacing their existing technology infrastructure.
“Our architecture eliminates blind spots in financial crime detection. It gives institutions a complete view of the user journey, combining transactional and non-transactional behavioral data,” Alyousef said.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Some electronic money institutions using the platform have reported fraud reductions of up to 90 percent.
• The platform combines anti-money laundering and fraud prevention into a single financial crime intelligence system.
• FOCAL integrates with existing banking systems without requiring institutions to replace their technology stack.
Beyond its underlying architecture, Alyousef pointed to several areas where FOCAL aims to differentiate itself in a competitive market. One is its emphasis on proactive fraud prevention, which assesses risk throughout the customer lifecycle — from onboarding and login behavior to ongoing account activity — with the goal of stopping fraud before losses occur.
He described the platform as an “expert-led model,” highlighting the availability of on-the-ground support for system design, tuning, assessments, and continuous optimization throughout its use.
“FOCAL is designed to be extended,” Alyousef added, noting its adaptability and the ability for clients to customize schemas, rules, and data fields to match their business models and risk tolerance. This flexibility, he said, allows institutions to respond more quickly to emerging fraud patterns.
Alyousef also emphasized the importance of local context in the platform’s development.
“The platform incorporates regional regulatory requirements and language considerations. Global tools often struggle with local context, naming conventions and compliance nuances — we are designed specifically with these realities in mind,” he said.
FOCAL is currently used by a range of organizations, including traditional banks, digital banks, fintech firms, electronic money institutions, payment companies, and other financial service providers. Alyousef said results from live deployments have been significant, with some large EMI clients reporting fraud reductions of up to 90 percent.
“Clients benefit not only from reduced fraud losses but also from an improved customer experience, as the system minimizes unnecessary friction and false rejections,” he said. “Beyond financial services, we also work with organizations in e-commerce and telecommunications.”
Looking ahead, Alyousef said the company sees agentic AI as a key direction for the future of financial crime prevention, both in the region and globally. Mozn, he added, is investing heavily in this area to enhance investigative workflows and operational efficiency, building on the capabilities of its Financial Crime Intelligence layer.
“We are pioneers in introducing agentic AI for financial crime investigation and rule-building. Our roadmap increasingly emphasizes automation, advanced machine learning and AI-assisted workflows to improve investigator productivity and reduce false positives.”
As AI tools become more widely available, Alyousef warned that the risk of misuse by criminals is also increasing, raising the bar for defensive technologies.
“Our goal is to stay ahead of that curve and to contribute meaningfully to positioning Saudi Arabia and the region as globally competitive leaders in AI,” he said.
