[Guangming Review]
Author: Sun Xin (Assistant Professor, School of Marxism, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Special Researcher, Beijing Xi Jinping Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in a New Era)
Recently, the first low altitude short distance transportation route from Shenzhen to Zhuhai was officially opened. Passengers can take a helicopter from Shenzhen Nantou heliport to Zhuhai Jiuzhou Airport. The travel time has been shortened from about 2 hours to 20 minutes. This provides new options for business exchanges, tourism and family trips, and further enriches the comprehensive transportation network system of the Greater Bay Area. The rapid opening of the Shenzhen Zhuhai low altitude short haul route is a microcosm of the local seizing the new low altitude economic track.
What is "low altitude economy"? As a strategic emerging industry, low altitude economy generally refers to the economic form generated by various aircraft flying activities and their radiation in low altitude airspace below 1000 meters in true height, mainly including four sectors: low altitude aircraft manufacturing, low altitude operation services, low altitude infrastructure construction and low altitude flight support, specifically covering two scenarios of residential consumption and industrial application, It is characterized by a strong industrial chain, complex application scenarios, multiple users, and obvious radiation effects. Its development mainly relies on technological progress, policy support, and market demand.
Scientific and technological innovation is the core driving force of low altitude economic development. Technological progress has provided safer and more efficient aircraft and flight control systems for low altitude flight. At present, the domestic low altitude aircraft industry has accumulated rich experience and advanced technology in the design, R&D and manufacturing of UAVs and general aircraft. Many enterprises have set foot in UAV manufacturing, application services and other fields. They have made great progress in airworthiness certification, route execution, online sales and other aspects, forming a relatively complete industrial chain. The "new navigation" represented by UAVs, eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft), flying cars and UAM (urban air traffic) has taken the lead in the world.
In recent years, China's low altitude economic development environment has continued to improve, and policy measures have been constantly optimized. Not long ago, the Implementation Plan for Innovative Application of General Aviation Equipment (2024-2030) jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other four departments proposed to promote the low altitude economy to form a trillion level market scale by 2030. All provinces and cities are also accelerating the layout of low altitude economic racetracks and competing to build the "City of the Sky". As a comprehensive economic form spurred by new quality productivity, low altitude economy has gradually flourished with the continuous progress of science and technology and strong policy empowerment, ushering in a major opportunity period. 2024 is also known as the "first year of low altitude economy".
The application scenario is a key link in the industrial chain of low altitude economy. Expanding to low altitude is not only the expansion of scale, but also the expansion of dimension, bringing infinite new economic resources. At present, low altitude economy has been widely integrated into tourism, agricultural production, environmental monitoring, emergency rescue, logistics distribution and other fields. The application scenarios continue to expand, and the "flying radius" continues to expand. Civil UAVs have taken the lead in popularizing the industry in fields such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery and entertainment aerial photography. Manned/unmanned cooperative operation and manned flight have entered the stage of test verification. UAV logistics distribution business has been extended to urban business circles and communities, and the airworthiness certification of eVTOL models is also progressing steadily.
When the low altitude economy ushered in the wind, the super trillion market scale behind it gradually emerged, showing great potential. According to some estimates, China's low altitude economy will reach 505.95 billion yuan in 2023, with a growth rate of 33.8%. Among them, the scale of the eVTOL industry as a cutting-edge track is close to 1 billion yuan, and the scale of the civil UAV industry is close to 120 billion yuan. By February 2024, more than 57000 enterprises in China's low altitude economy are accelerating to seize the "low altitude territory" and try to "take off".
From the regional perspective, the local government flexibly uses various financial tools to promote the coordinated development of various industrial links in the low altitude economy. The advantages of industrial agglomeration are obvious, showing their own industrial characteristics. Among them, Shenzhen, as the world famous "UAV City", has gathered a large number of leading enterprises in the UAV industry by virtue of its advantages in industrial policies and resources, established a good industrial foundation and relatively complete industrial support, and its flight scale is leading in the country.
It should also be noted that compared with the mature airspace management and commercial operation of high-altitude flight, China's low altitude economic development is still in its infancy, and still faces some uncertainties. For example, aircraft design and manufacturing has not formed a unified technical route, and the development of low altitude digitization, dispatching automation, unmanned flight and other industry pain points and difficulties still need to be further broken through, and so on. The foundation of guiding the low altitude economy to take off and help the low altitude economy "fly" higher and faster is to optimize the low altitude flight service guarantee system. It is necessary to fully release the momentum of low altitude airspace management reform, optimize the allocation of airspace resources, improve the efficiency of airspace resource management, expand the opening of low altitude airspace, improve the efficiency of safety supervision, and establish and improve the law and regulation system of low altitude airspace management. At the same time, it is necessary to consolidate the low altitude infrastructure. While making full use of the helicopter apron and other navigation infrastructure, it is also necessary to promote the upgrading of communication and navigation, meteorological equipment, energy power, low altitude airspace control system, UAV flight information system and other supporting infrastructure. It is expected that with the vigorous development of low altitude economy, "air taxi" can speed up its entry into public life, bring more travel options for consumers, and add more surging growth impetus to the economy.
