Industry News

As a strategic emerging industry, general aviation industry has enormous economic and social benefits. According to the analysis of related data, the ratio of one added aircraft to the newly brought entrants to the labor force is 1:100. The deputy to the National People's Congress and Chairman of Chongqing Airport Group Co., Ltd. Tan Pingchuan said that general aviation will enter an explosive growth period. At present, China's GDP per capita is about to reach 10000 US dollars and now is the right time for the development of general aviation.

General aviation industry in China still falls behind that of the developed economies

In recent years, China has speeded up the development of low-altitude airspace management and the reform trial in general aviation development. 26 cities have been chosen as the comprehensive demonstration areas. Till the end of 2017, China owns 2292 general aircrafts, about 3000 professional pilots and more than 300 general airports. General aviation achieved 808000 hours of flight throughout the year. Chongqing becomes the first pilot city in the southwest for low-level airspace management reform in 2017 and the flight hour of general aviation of Chongqing reaches 4504h in total.

Tan Pingchuan said China’s general aviation had been developing for a long period of time, but still lags behind that of the developed economies such as America and European countries. The aircrafts, pilots and airports for general aviation are only 1%, 0.5% and 1.5% of those of America respectively. The general aviation also falls behind of some developing countries such as Brazil and South Africa and it severely falls behind of the development of transport aviation, becoming the short board of the industry and resulting in the uneven development of civil aviation in China.

Air traffic control is too strict and lacks regulations and standards

According to Tan Pingchuan, although some regulations and rules have been introduced to simplify the general aviation approval process, the approval process is still relatively complicated and takes a long time. Especially when using cross-control zones or implementing temporary tasks, approval and coordination take longer time and restrict the activeness of general aviation operation main body.

Since the construction and operation specifications of general airports have not been clarified, airport transportation standards are still adopted, resulting in complicated examination and approval procedures, high construction standards and high operating costs. As a result, the construction of general airport has been slow and severely inadequate.

Moreover, the training institutions aiming to the construction of general airport and the practitioners are both in shortage. Besides, the flight meteorological service, aeronautical information service and the supplying of aviation oil for general aviation are not convenient and the service assurance needs further improvement as well.

Promoting to carry out the policy on low-altitude airspace

Therefore, Tan Pingchuan suggested that related institutions promote the low-altitude airspace reform and carry out the related opening-up policies of the low-altitude airspace, which requires us to plan airspace areas scientifically in accordance with the market and actual needs. Based on the classification management of airspace, the country should expand reporting area and monitoring area, simplify the approval procedures and further establish a system of negative list of airspace use and flight applications.

Second, it is recommended that the relevant national authorities issue clear construction and operation standards for general airport based on the types of general airports. Regional airports are encouraged to improve their general aviation capabilities, carry out navigation operations, and further decentralize general airport construction approval authority to reduce approvals.

Finally, Tan Pingchuan suggested that relevant institutions should be encouraged to set up general aviation disciplines, broaden the training channels for pilots and professionals, encourage related organizations to explore and improve the construction of flight service stations, improve general aviation flight plan service, aeronautical information service and meteorological service as well as increase government financial subsidies for the construction and operation of general aviation.

Reprint from http://www.tyhk.com.cn