urhaibingo| Civil Aviation Administration: It will cooperate with relevant departments to pilot airspace classification and low-altitude airspace management reforms to increase low-altitude flyable airspace

In Zhongxin Tianjin Eco-city, drones automatically complete city inspection tasks in accordance with designated routes; at Shenzhen Pingshan Swallow Lake Convention and Exhibition Center, passengers can arrive at Futian CBD after taking an "air taxi" for more than 10 minutes.

As a strategic emerging industry in global competition, the "low-level economy", which was first included in the government work report this year, is accelerating its integration into various industries, profoundly changing people's production and life, and the market scale is growing. According to estimates, the scale of China's low-altitude economy is expected to exceed one trillion yuan in 2026.

Trillion-yuan industry surfaced

Low-altitude economy is a comprehensive economic form, which is driven by the low-altitude flight activities of manned and unmanned aircraft, and radiation drives the integrated development of related fields. Covers aircraft R & D and manufacturing, low-altitude flight infrastructure construction and operation, flight service support and other industries.

To develop a low-altitude economy, popularly speaking, is to build a "road" to a "low altitude". On this new "road", there will also be "cars" on the road, "drivers" and industries thriving because of the "road".

"the low-altitude airspace below 1000 meters in vertical altitude gives birth to a broad space for development." Qin Rui, director of the low-altitude economy and low-altitude Traffic Research Center of Civil Aviation University of China, said that the low-altitude economy to "fly" depends first of all on the openness of low-altitude airspace resources.

In 2010, the State Council and the Central military Commission issued the opinions on deepening the Reform of low-altitude airspace Management in China, which opened the prelude to developing low-altitude resources and promoting the development of navigation.

In February 2021, the low-altitude economy was written into the outline of the National Comprehensive three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning for the first time; in December 2023, the Central Economic work Conference listed the low-altitude economy as a strategic emerging industry; at the two sessions of this year, the low-altitude economy has been included in the government work report as one of the "new growth engines", which is becoming more and more important.

In recent years, driven by market demand and policy support, traditional navigation operations such as agriculture, forestry, plant protection and electric power inspection involved in the low-altitude economy have maintained steady growth, and new business type, such as air tours, air sports, and medical aid, are also accelerating development.

Data show that by the end of 2023, there were more than 1.26 million drones in China, an increase of about 32% over the same period last year.Urhaibingo.5 times. In 2023, the scale of China's low-level economy exceeded 500 billion yuan.

In January, China's independently developed AG60E electric aircraft successfully made its maiden flight; in February, the five-seat eVTOL aircraft Sheng Shilong flew from Shenzhen to Zhuhai for the first time; at the end of March, the domestic civilian airship "Xiangyun" AS700 completed its first transition flight. Since the beginning of this year, new events in the field of low-altitude economy have attracted people's attention.

At the same time, many places in China seize the opportunity of industrial development and open up a new space for low-level economic development.

In Chongqing, a pilot city for low-altitude airspace management reform, from R & D and manufacturing of aero-engines and drones to operational services and satellite applications, general aviation enterprises have accelerated the layout of the whole industry chain. covering logistics and distribution, urban governance, air commuting, emergency rescue and other scenarios.

In Shenzhen, the "capital of drones", the hardware and software foundation and supporting facilities of low-altitude economy have been improved, and enterprises have actively laid out terminal transfer nodes and community-level UAV take-off and landing sites. The construction of the "four networks" of low-altitude economic facilities network, air network, air network and service network has been accelerated.

Consultant Sadie, a research institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released a report in April predicting that the scale of China's low-level economy is expected to exceed one trillion yuan in 2026.

Safety management is the bottom line of development.

In March this year, the self-developed unmanned tonnage electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft by Fengfei Airlines obtained a model certificate issued by the East China Regional Administration of Civil Aviation of China, laying the foundation for large-scale commercial operation.

The reporter learned that in order to promote the healthy development of the low-altitude economy, relevant state departments have launched a series of supporting policies and reform and innovation measures around equipment innovation, airport construction, access management, service guarantee, and so on. Among them, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has approved the establishment of 17 civil unmanned aviation test zones and 3 test bases, covering cities, islands, regional logistics, comprehensive application expansion and other scenarios.

Industry insiders said that China's low-altitude economy has begun to take shape and has a good momentum of development. As a strategic emerging industry, it is inevitable to face some "growth troubles".

"the low-altitude economy is flying out, and safety is the bottom line of development." Jin Wei, deputy secretary general of the China UAV Industry Innovation Alliance, said that the quality of low-altitude aircraft is very important, and it is necessary to speed up the construction of a low-altitude equipment product system with low cost, high reliability, high performance and high safety. it is also necessary to further optimize and improve airworthiness approval, safety supervision, and standard and specification formulation, so that low-altitude aircraft can be "seen, called, and controlled."

Not long ago, a manned plane took off from Chongqing Longxing General Airport to Zigong, Sichuan. The cross-provincial low-altitude visual route between Sichuan and Chongqing was successfully demonstrated for the first time. In the next step, the two sides will jointly build and share aviation information and low-altitude meteorological information, and scientifically allocate resources in low-altitude airspace so that more aircraft can fly safely.

"low-altitude airspace resources involve many departments and are the basic resources for the development of low-altitude economy, and their openness and utilization are related to the long-term development of low-altitude economy." Ping Songrui, deputy director of the equipment Department of the Chongqing Economic and Information Technology Commission, said that the pilot project of low-altitude airspace management reform has been carried out steadily and continues to achieve results. With the gradual increase of low-altitude flight activities, there is room for further improvement of the low-altitude airspace collaborative management system.

The reporter investigated in some places and found that at present, the manufacturing link is the rapid development of the low-altitude economy industry, and the links such as security and service are relatively weak. In some places, low-altitude economic industrial parks are built, focusing on areas such as UAV manufacturing, but due to the lack of relevant supporting facilities and imperfect policies, the large-scale demonstration application and commercial development of new products and new technologies are restricted to a certain extent.

During New Year's Day's reign in 2024, nearly 10,000 drones from Yifei Intelligence Control (Tianjin) Technology Co., Ltd. conducted formation flights in more than 30 cities at home and abroad, lighting up the night sky and boosting sales at the same time.

"for high-tech enterprises, finding matching application scenarios for technology is the primary factor in the landing of products." Qi Juntong, chairman of the company, suggested that we should coordinate the elements of airspace, market, technology, policy and security, explore and promote more application scenarios in an orderly manner, and steadily promote the development of low-altitude economy.

Avoid "mass action" homogenization competition

Industry insiders believe that it is necessary to better coordinate development and security, strengthen policy support and safety guarantees from aspects such as airspace management, flight approval, supporting facilities construction, and regulatory and standard systems, and develop a low-altitude economy according to local conditions.

It is noteworthy that some companies interviewed said that with the rapid growth of the number of low-altitude aircraft and routes, some low-altitude airspace has become a little "crowded" and there may be certain hidden dangers.

The relevant person in charge of the Civil Aviation Administration of China stated that it will cooperate with relevant departments to carry out pilot reforms of airspace classification and low-altitude airspace management, increase low-altitude flyable airspace, jointly strengthen the construction of a service guarantee system for low-altitude flight activities, and continue to improve plan approval, air traffic control, meteorological, communications, surveillance and other service guarantees for low-altitude flight activities.

The person in charge said that in response to the new demand for infrastructure in low-altitude economic development, general airport construction and operation standards will be further improved, the construction of general airports and temporary landing points will be promoted, airworthiness certification capabilities will be improved, and aircraft airworthiness standards and certification will be optimized. Models and technologies will be optimized. At the same time, the safety supervision system for low-altitude flights is iteratively upgraded.

When multiple places are stepping up efforts to lay out low-altitude economies, how to avoid "rushing into action" and homogeneous competition?

"Sichuan and Chongqing region is rich in tourism resources, has great demand and potential for low-altitude tourism, and has a wide range of emergency rescue and other scenarios. In the future, it will become the focus and highlight of the development of low-altitude economies in the two places." Wang Quanbao, executive deputy director of the Chongqing Near Space Innovation and Research Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that for local governments, they must base themselves on local resource endowments, grasp people's livelihood needs, highlight scene characteristics, and rely on the industrial foundation to position the development direction of low-altitude economy. Guide the effective gathering of factor resources such as technology, capital, and talents to key enterprises, improve the modernization level of the industrial chain, drive local economic development, and create local business cards.

Wang Quanbao said that developing a low-altitude economy is faster and more strenuous. We must be able to sit on the bench, devote ourselves to researching core equipment technologies and low-altitude Intelligent Link technology, and innovate application scenarios according to the needs of economic and social development.

Experts suggest that we must continuously improve the regulatory and standard system, promote the coordinated development of national standards, industry standards, and group standards, and encourage leading enterprises to drive upstream and downstream enterprises to jointly carry out standard research. Build an industrial standard system that runs through the entire life cycle of low-altitude equipment R & D, design, production and manufacturing, test verification, and operation support to protect the orderly development of low-altitude economy.

"The low-altitude economy has huge and high demands for talents in cutting-edge emerging cross-cutting fields such as general aviation." Qin Rui said that at present, the cultivation of compound and cross-type talents in the low-altitude economic field in my country is still in the exploratory stage. It is necessary to strengthen the construction of relevant disciplines, deepen the integration of industry and education, promote the joint and precise training of talents by universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises, and help the vigorous development of the low-altitude economy.

(Original titleurhaibingo:"Xinhua Viewpoint| How can a trillion-yuan low-altitude economy "fly high"?")