On the 25th, Wang Changshun, Chairman of the China Air Transport Association (CATA), revealed in Beijing that as of the end of September this year, there were 2.049 million registered drones in China, and the total number of drone operators holding qualification certificates exceeded 17000.
On that day, the second CATA Aviation Conference opened in Beijing. Wang Changshun mentioned at the opening ceremony that since the beginning of this year, China's air transportation industry has shown a comprehensive recovery trend. In the first three quarters, China's domestic passenger transport volume has recovered to 114.4% of the same period in 2019, and international airline passenger transport volume has recovered to 92.8%. It is expected that by 2024, the passenger and freight volumes will exceed 720 million and 8.5 million tons respectively, setting a new historical high.
He also stated that the manufacturing shortcomings of China's aviation industry are accelerating, and the domestic civil aircraft industry has entered a new stage of large-scale, serialized, and industrialized development. Especially with the acceleration of mass production of new aircraft represented by electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOL) and remotely piloted aircraft (RPAS), it will be beneficial for China to integrate aviation manufacturing and drone development resources, and achieve accelerated integration and development of aviation manufacturing and emerging technologies. In the future, the aircraft lifecycle cost of airlines is expected to continue to decrease.
In addition, the digital and green transformation of China's aviation industry is accelerating, and its energy conservation and carbon reduction capabilities are continuously enhancing. According to Wang Changshun, in 2023, the fuel consumption per ton kilometer of Chinese civil aviation will decrease by 14.3% compared to 2005, and the average carbon dioxide emissions per passenger at airports will decrease by 60.5% compared to the baseline (i.e. the average from 2013 to 2015).
