Eastern Air Lines (2009) (Miami International) says a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with COMAC (Shanghai Pudong) in 2012 concerning the Chinese manufacturer's C919 regional jet, has now expired. Speaking to FlightGlobal during the recently ended Farnborough International Airshow 2014, Eastern's CEO, Edward Wegel, said the MoU was intended to proffer Comac with the opportunity to better understand the market.

"Our chairman and the chairman of Comac are very close. So when Comac asked if we would assist them understand the market better, understand US airlines better, we signed an agreement to co-operate," he said. "But obviously the C919 is not going to be delivered for a number of years and we’re ready to execute our business model, and that's why the Boeing 737 became very important for us."

Under the MoU's terms, Eastern Air Lines said it would assist Comac in developing their C919 with the possibility of it also placing a possible order.

As reported previously, Eastern is in the process of committing to ten B737-800s and ten B737 MAX 8s with additional plans to acquire as many as forty M90s from Japan's Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation (Nagoya Chubu).