Now for our special series – China Econ Watch. Sitting in traffic is common for people who commute to and from work, with long waits and delays adding to the daily grind. Omar Khan takes a look at a relatively new industry in China known as the low altitude economy, and how it could change this in the future.
For many of those from my generation, we grew up with movies and cartoons bringing to life, some of our fantasies and notions of what our future may look like.
A lot of this fiction-based storytelling revolved around technology, with the flying car or flying taxi something we all dreamt of witnessing.
OMAR KHAN CGTN Reporter "Now, without diving into the detailed history of aviation or transportation, I want to take a look at arguably one of the latest forms of transport that's making waves around the world. It's one that hasn't truly come to fruition in terms of commercialization, but it's nearly there, and has massive potential for the consumer, relevant industries, and the economy. Electric, vertical take-off and landing aircraft, yeah, it's a mouthful but luckily we can call it an eVTOL, and perhaps we'd better get used to hearing about it."
To get a glimpse of what future travel could look like, I traveled to Shenzhen, a city that's building 600 landing and take-off stations for low-altitude aircraft – it's a process that should be completed by next year.
But my visit wasn't purely about the low-altitude economy's infrastructure, it was actually for a historic moment set to take place.
Chinese aviation firm AutoFlight, was making their maiden flight from Shenzhen to Zhuhai, a cross city and cross sea journey – a global first.
Despite not being able to get onboard, I managed to get a front row seat and check out some of the eVTOLS before take-off.
OMAR KHAN Shenzhen, Guangdong Province "Well, it's pretty incredible being seated here in an EVTOL, that's an electric, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. And the future of transport, especially here in South China, seems to be extremely bright. Today, a special day, not only for AutoFlight, but the entire low altitude industry. You can just imagine in a few years what this could possibly transform into, be it municipal travel or regional travel, that's gonna be extremely accessible. And luckily for us, we can avoid some of the congested roads, avoid traffic and of course travel with the environment in mind."
I catch up with Kellen Xie, the company's senior VP who I met late last year at the Zhuhai air show.
It's both a busy and exciting day for him.
But I wanna know – what can this low-altitude industry bring to the economy?
OMAR KHAN Shenzhen, Guangdong Province "Late last year, there's a research institute in Shenzhen called IDEA, I can't remember the Chinese name, but they released a white paper about the low altitude economy, which includes drones and EVTOLS. And they estimated by next year, the value that it could contribute to the Chinese economy, I believe, is was U.S.$500 billion. How do you look at that? What are the opportunities that can play a role in this industry?"
KELLEN XIE Senior Vice President, AutoFlight "The 500 billion is only a start. So, IDEA actually published the this white paper, actually counting what we have currently like the drone photography, like the small drone cargoes, and then et cetera. But they haven't really been sort of calculating the much bigger potential that if the human transportation becomes available by taking this big ECTOL aircraft. The total size of the market will become much bigger, much bigger than 500 billion."
OMAR KHAN CGTN Reporter "And the support for this industry and market is quite tangible. Just last year 16 provinces included the low-altitude economy and other relevant industries in their government work reports – that's rather significant. The city of Guangzhou for example, which is not too far from Shenzhen, even introduced a subsidy of up to 4.2 million US dollars for eligible projects. This is all in line with development guidelines released last year, that will push China to advance green aviation. But, when will the images and fantasy tales of my childhood cartoons become a reality?"
KELLEN XIE Senior Vice President, AutoFlight "I think it will happen much sooner than we think. So right now, we are looking forward to actually receive our passenger type certification in 2026. So right after that, from this year 2024 to 2026, we will have many trial flights and many trial routes. And this is actually first ever route actual air routes in human history. And then it will actually educate the general public, then let them witness this new type of aircraft flying, and until it becomes very normal, until it becomes very like daily work. And so the general public will be very confident to actually board on this new aircraft, I think, will happen in 2026 or even not long after that."
OMAR KHAN CGTN Reporter "Keep in mind that AutoFlight aren't the only eVTOL player in the Chinese market, there's a handful of other competitors. And much of this pursuit of innovation, is China looking to tackle economic hurdles and find new engines of growth. So for the low-altitude economy, the money's there, the infrastructure is well on its way, and the tech, is well, it's already in the sky. Two years is not that far away – time flies, no pun intended. But just knowing, that in the not so distant future, there'll be yet another layer and option for travel and commuting at an affordable price, should make many of us eager, to take to the skies."
