Beijing (CNS) -- A nationwide system to manage and serve China's low-altitude airspace industry is slated for 2015, to be accomplished by gradually loosening the current policy restrictions, China's air traffic authority said on November 22.
In 2012, China will expand the low altitude pilot area to 31.6 percent of its total territorial airspace, one step in its national strategic development plan, announced Zhu Shicai, an official at the air traffic office under the Central Military Commission.
Lowering thresholds will break the bottleneck in the country's general aviation market by encouraging more market competition among foreign and private capitals, explained Xu Zhanbing, a leader in the Aviation Industry Corporation of China.
Xu speculated that there will be an increase in China's registered general-purpose airplanes – up to 50,000 or 100,000 in future decades - equivalent to an annual market potential of more than 5,000 aircraft purchases.
The latest data released by the Civil Aviation Administration showed the number of corporate aircraft operating on the Chinese mainland grew from 32 in 2008 to 61 in 2010. One-sixth of the mainland's wealthy , 875,000 millionaires and 55,000 billionaires (both in yuan), are planning to make private plane purchases, according to the Hurun Wealth Report 2011.
