Civil aircrafts are displayed at the general aviation exhibition area of the Changchun Air Show in Northeast China's Jilin Province on October 20, 2019. Photo: VCG

Central China's Hunan Province became the country's first pilot province for all-area, low-altitude flights on Sunday, marking a major step in China's long-term development plan for its domestic civil aviation industry with more aircraft and airports. 

Hunan will accumulate experience from trials in communication coverage surveyed by aircraft, low-altitude airspace supervision and low-altitude airspace operation management in airspace that is below 3,000 meters, providing a theoretical basis for the opening up of low-altitude airspace nationwide, said the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

In September 2020, Hunan was approved as the country's first pilot province for low-altitude airspace management reform. The province has built 12 general airports, with five general aviation bases under construction and five low-altitude tourist routes having been opened.

Hunan will achieve full coverage of low-altitude manned aircraft monitoring and communication by the end of August, and it will start the construction of a comprehensive monitoring platform for unmanned aircraft management and control.

This year, construction will start or finish on more than 50 general airports or aviation bases, and more than 30 general aviation routes will be opened in Hunan. More than 80 high-quality global enterprises on the entire industry chain of general aviation will be introduced in the province.

Since 2016, China has seen steady growth in its general-aviation sector, with the fleet growing to 2,844 aircraft and 981,000 flying hours as of the end of 2020, according to statistics from the CAAC.

By 2020, China had 523,600 registered unmanned aerial vehicles, which flew 1.594 million hours for business in the whole year, a year-on-year increase of 36.4 percent. And the total number of annual flight hours has exceeded 1.59 million, with the number of general airports reaching 339.