The trillion-dollar market of the general aviation industry is attractive, and multiple layouts are seizing the opportunity for development

Source: AOPA

As a typical military-civilian integration industry, general aviation's development level is not only an important part of building a modern three-dimensional transportation network system, but also a measure of a country's low scientific and technological, economic development and people's living standards.

General aviation refers to the use of civil aircraft to engage in civil aviation activities other than public air transportation, including operating flights in industry, agriculture, forestry, fishery and construction industries, as well as flights in medical and health care, emergency rescue, meteorological detection, marine monitoring, scientific experiments, education and training, culture and sports.

The general aviation industry has a long chain, a wide range of service areas and strong driving capabilities. It is the only industry that has not been fully opened since the reform and opening up. In recent years, with the accelerated thawing of national policies, general aviation has become an important industrial choice for the country to drive investment, upgrade consumption, and transform and develop.

General aviation industry policies frequently

China's general aviation industry has grown from scratch, with the scale of the industry and potential market value constantly expanding, and its R&D, manufacturing and operational strength has been significantly enhanced, and has gradually become an important force driving the upgrading of traditional industries such as science and technology, tourism, and agriculture and the transformation of economic development modes.

my country began to establish its own general aviation team in 1951. In 1952, the first general aviation flight team in New China was established. During this period, my country's general aviation developed rapidly, and initially formed the basic strength of my country's general aviation, and made significant breakthroughs and progress in team size, technical level, operation quantity and quality. In 1986, the State Council issued the "Interim Provisions on General Aviation Management", which clarified the control units, approval procedures, approval procedures, etc. During this period, industry development has recovered well.

The domestic general aviation is widely used and plays an important role in all aspects of economic construction. The country has also issued relevant policies many times to promote the development of the general aviation industry.

In May 2010, the Civil Aviation Administration issued the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Civil Aviation in China"; in June 2012, the Civil Aviation Administration issued the "General Airport Construction Specifications".

According to statistics from the General Aviation Branch of the China Air Transport Association, as of the end of 2015, the general aviation market size of my country's general aviation market was about 37.5 billion yuan, and the output value of general aviation in my country in 2015 was 37.5 billion yuan, 21 times that of 2006 and 2.5 times that of 2010. In the past 10 years, the average annual compound growth rate has exceeded 35%. In 2015, the flight operation time of general aviation in my country was 735,000 hours, the number of aircraft was 2,235, and the number of general aviation enterprises was 281.

2016 is a critical year for the development of China's general aviation. The issuance of the General Office of the State Council’s "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of the General Aviation Industry" has prevented China’s general aviation industry from "waiting for the wind". The national-level strategic layout has ignited the enthusiasm of governments at all levels to formulate general aviation development plans and enterprises to accelerate the deployment of the general aviation industry. General aviation, as a strategic emerging industry, has become a gathering place for policy dividends.

In October 2016, the Civil Aviation Administration issued the "Opinions on Encouraging Social Capital to Investment, Construction and Operation of Civil Airports"; in November 2016, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Notice on Doing a Good Job in the Demonstration and Promotion of General Aviation".

According to the "Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Development of the General Aviation Industry", in 2020, the number of general aircraft will reach 5,000, the flight hours will reach 2 million hours, and the number of domestic general airports will reach 500. According to rough speculation, based on the average of 20 million yuan per aircraft, 20,000 yuan per hour, and 50 million yuan per airport (including take-off and landing points), the market size in 2020 will be about 1.65 trillion yuan.

Since mid-2017, policies on general aviation have been continuously released from the Civil Aviation Administration of China. According to information released on its official website by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, from October 2017 to April 2018, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has successively issued more than 60 reform measures related to the general aviation field.

Among them, in 2017, the Civil Aviation Administration issued the "13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of General Aviation", which is the first time that my country's industry management department has issued a five-year special plan for general aviation. It is an important part of the civil aviation 13th Five-Year Plan system and a specific implementation of the "Guiding Opinions of the General Office of the State Council on Promoting the Development of the General Aviation Industry", and is of great significance to the reform and development of general aviation in the critical stage of building a strong civil aviation country.

The policies released like a wave have brought about the results, and a number of data from China's general aviation industry have achieved significant growth. According to data released by the Civil Aviation Administration, in the first quarter of 2018, my country added 24 general airports for certificate issuance, equivalent to 30% of the total number of general airports issued in previous years; the flight hours of general airports increased by 17.8% year-on-year, of which the year-on-year growth in January reached 91.1%.

On October 12, 2018, in order to further strengthen the construction of the low-altitude flight service guarantee system and promote the development of the general aviation industry, and in order to safely and quickly use the low-altitude airspace, the Civil Aviation Administration issued the "Overall Plan for the Construction of the Low-altitude Flight Service Guarantee System" in light of the demand for my country's general aviation development and the actual situation of the pilot reform of low-altitude airspace management. The new plan puts forward two major goals, and the third-level low-altitude flight service guarantee system will be initially built in 2022. In 2030, the system will need to cover multiple aspects of low-altitude reporting, surveillance airspace and general airports.

Chengdu, one of the 26 navigation demonstration zones, is accelerating the construction of projects such as the Sichuan Province Low-altitude Flight Command and Service Center and Chengdu Plain Low-altitude Flight Service Station, and fully promotes the pilot management of low-altitude airspace opening below 3,000 meters in Sichuan Province.

Huge potential to seize the trillion-dollar market

According to the plan of the State Council and the Civil Aviation Administration of China, by 2020, my country will have more than 5,000 aeronautical aircraft, the number of aeronautical pilots will reach 7,000, and the economic scale will exceed 1 trillion yuan. By 2020, 50 comprehensive demonstration zones of the general aviation industry will be built nationwide.

The basic industrial sectors of the general aviation industry system involve new materials, chemical metallurgy, electronic information and other industries, and the core industrial sectors of the general aviation industry involve equipment manufacturing, infrastructure construction, financial services, education, tourism and other industries. The large-scale development of the general aviation industry system can often achieve huge investment benefits. Taking the driving benefits of the general aviation service industry on forestry as an example: At present, my country's aerial sowing has formed about 3.3 million hectares of forests, with a forest stock of 100 million cubic meters, with a total value of 5 billion yuan, which is equivalent to 8.5 times the total investment amount.

The general aviation industry is expected to be held. "Its upstream is general aviation equipment manufacturing, communication navigation, etc., in the middle is general aviation operation, flight training, general aviation engine and component manufacturing, airport management, etc., and downstream is aircraft maintenance, aviation material leasing, artificial rain increase, aviation tourism, etc.." Duan Runbao, deputy director of the Hebei Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, said that general aviation spans the secondary and tertiary industries and has the characteristics of technology-intensive, talent-intensive, capital-intensive, relatively output, and relatively added value.
The development level of my country's general aviation industry is much lower than that of developed countries. At present, there is still a gap between my country and the United States that own 210,000 general aviation aircraft, 16,800 general aviation airports and 500,000 general aviation pilots, and there is huge room for development in related industries. This means that with the continuous development of general aviation in my country, new market opportunities will continue to emerge in various industrial fields, and areas such as personnel training, equipment manufacturing and operation management will usher in broad development prospects.
According to research from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, there are currently less than 3,000 on-duty flight personnel in my country, and the gap will reach 7,000 in the next three years. At the same time, the gap in professional talents such as aircraft maintenance and ground support continues to widen. At the same time, as people's demand for quality medical care increases, the aviation medical rescue market is booming. It is estimated that by 2025, my country's demand for aviation medical rescue aircraft will exceed 1,000.

Judging from the construction needs of airport equipment, airport systems and radar systems, the air traffic control system cost generally accounts for 1% to 1.5% of the total airport construction cost. Based on the total airport construction scale of 300 billion yuan, the market space of air traffic control system will reach 3 billion to 4.5 billion yuan; in addition, airport equipment and secondary radar systems will have a potential market of over 10 billion yuan.

Broad prospects for industrial-city integration development. Data shows that the input-output ratio of the general aviation industry is 1:10, the technology transfer ratio is 1:16, and the employment driving ratio is 1:12, involving a huge industrial chain from R&D, manufacturing, maintenance, airports, flight operations, navigation services to flight guarantee, and also includes extended related industries, such as electronics, new materials, new energy, training, financial leasing, insurance, etc.

The general aviation industry has a huge industrial chain, and the country has intensively introduced favorable policies, which has brought unprecedented historical opportunities to the development of the general aviation industry. The market prospects are very broad, and the scale is expected to reach tens of trillions.

The National "Implementation Opinions on the Construction of a General Aviation Industry Comprehensive Demonstration Zone" proposes that 26 cities with good industrial foundation, strong comprehensive strength, active system and mechanism, short-term breakthroughs and great demonstration roles should be selected across the country, and the first batch of comprehensive demonstration zones for the general aviation industry in the country should be carried out.

The general aviation industry has a great driving force for local economic development. During the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the estimated investment in the general aviation industry exceeded 170 billion yuan; in 2010, there were only 28 general aviation industrial parks or bases of various types, and more than 140 new parks planned to be built during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, of which more than 90 were planned to develop the entire industrial chain, and more than 20 were mainly aviation manufacturing.
As a strategic emerging industry strongly supported by the state, governments in many places have launched general aviation industry development plans, continuously releasing policy dividends, and actively deploying the general aviation industry. The general aviation industry has a huge industrial chain and has a broad market prospect. Faced with the huge general navigation industry market, provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) have prepared for the battle and quickly set off a wave of development.
Wuhu City, Anhui City regards general aviation as one of the future directions for industrial transformation and upgrading, establishes Wuhu Aviation Production Park, takes aviation manufacturing as the leader, and promotes the development of service industries such as aviation training, light aircraft tourism project development, and aviation logistics.

Chengdu proposed to vigorously develop tourism-based low-altitude tourism and build a number of low-altitude tourism bases dominated by tourism. Among them, we will strive to build a national-level Dujiangyan general aviation tourism demonstration project, and develop two types of low-altitude sightseeing in helicopter scenic spots and Dujiangyan low-altitude sightseeing. At the same time, Dujiangyan City will leverage its location advantages as the "Jiuzhai, Huanglong-Chengdu, Dujiangyan-Leshan, Emei" golden tourism line hub, and open a navigation tourism special line to well-known scenic spots within 500 kilometers of the surrounding area.

"The purpose of establishing a national-level general aviation demonstration zone is to gather production factors and form an industrial scale as soon as possible." In the view of Zhao Qingfei, director of the Planning and Development Department of AVIC North China Aircraft Industry Co., Ltd., the first batch of demonstration zones have formed development models with their own characteristics, among which Shijiazhuang, Nanchang, Anshun and others focus on using aviation cities and aviation industry bases as platforms to achieve integrated development in the industry and city.
Datong City, Shanxi Province seized the opportunity to take the lead in developing the general aviation industry, signed three cooperation agreements for related projects of the general aviation industry, embarked on a new journey of the general aviation industry development in Datong City, and laid a solid foundation for accelerating the construction of an innovative general aviation industry system in the new era.
Jilin Province has issued 40 new policies on the general navigation industry. As early as July 25, 2018, Jilin Province established a general aviation industry development leading group with a relatively standard to strengthen organizational leadership over the development of Jilin's general aviation industry.
Wuhan City proposed to build a "capital of general aviation industry", and the first general aviation industry development plan was released. Since 2018, a number of capital and projects in the general aviation field have been successively launched and started construction, and the general aviation industry map of Wuhan Development Zone has been continuously expanding and its development has entered the fast lane. At the same time, Wuhan's first aviation industry development plan was officially released. The plan proposes that in the future, Wuhan will carry out aircraft assembly and manufacturing through mergers and acquisitions, cooperative production, and technology introduction, and increase innovation and research and development, break through key technologies, and build a new land for the central general aviation industry.