In July, the central government included the “development of general aviation and low-altitude economy” into the resolution of the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, pushing the popularity of the low-altitude economy to a higher level.

“Low-altitude economy” refers to economic activities in the airspace within 1,000 meters above ground using advanced air mobility (AAM) as the core, and the main carriers include unmanned aerial vehicles, flying taxis and others, enabling air travel, logistics and transportation. General aviation (GA) covers a wide range of civil aviation activities other than military, police, customs anti-smuggling flights, and public air transport. It includes helicopters, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL), as well as agricultural aircraft and distribution drones; and low-altitude economy is part of it.

Xinhua News Agency quoted estimates that China’s low-altitude economy exceeded 500 billion yuan ($70.5 billion) in 2023 and is expected to reach 2 trillion yuan in 2030. Morgan Stanley also predicts that the global market for urban air mobility will reach $1 trillion by 2040 and soar to $9 trillion by 2050.

The low-altitude economy will create more jobs; for example, Boeing forecasts that the aviation industry will need 2.3 million new recruits in the next 20 years, including 650,000 pilots and nearly 1 million flight attendants. In addition, because most of these aircraft are powered by electricity, they emit less carbon than conventional aircraft, contributing to the International Air Transport Association’s vision of zero carbon emissions by 2050.

On the Chinese mainland, Shenzhen is a leader in the low-altitude economy. In 2023, the city flew more than 600,000 cargo drones, ranking first in the country. What’s more, at the Shenzhen Low-altitude Economy High-quality Development Conference in early August, the city’s senior officials said that the city will build more than 1,000 routes and 1,000 platforms for low-altitude aircraft takeoffs and landings by the end of 2025, so as to achieve the international advanced level in the field.

As the low-altitude economy is environmentally friendly and enables a wide range of applications on the Chinese mainland and internationally, how can Hong Kong effectively harness the potential to boost the local economy? In face of the rapid development of its neighboring regions, how can Hong Kong leverage its advantages and secure a unique role in the development of this promising industry? I think the following three ways are key to ensure Hong Kong succeeds:

First, a regulatory sandbox is needed to promote safety testing and public education.

Operating drones over Hong Kong, which is packed with tall buildings and hosts a dense population, inevitably raises safety concerns. However, transport by aviation is in fact far safer than by car. According to US government statistics, the fatality rate per 100 aircraft-miles (161 kilometers) for US carriers was 0.05, whereas the rate for cars is 1.11.

In other words, aviation can be said to be the safest mode of travel. The use of highly automated Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is expected to further heighten the safety level.

However, how can the public be persuaded to accept these innovative services and ensure that AAM can develop in an orderly manner?

The establishment of a regulatory sandbox is key to providing a testing ground for a variety of applications and collaborations for skyway design, networking and security issues, in a controlled environment.

Earlier this year, I proposed that the low-altitude industry and related technology companies be allowed to participate in test flight programs with selected customers at designated locations under specific environments and alongside shipping lanes that comply with the Civil Aviation Department’s (CAD’s) regulatory requirements, so that the industry can collect data and user feedback to improve products. This will help speed up product launch and reduce development costs.

What applications can be included in the test?

Apart from low-altitude tourism and air taxi services that provide transportation for tourists to designated remote outlying islands, as well as food delivery and emergency rescue services to isolated residents, as aeronautical and aviation engineering scholars at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University pointed out, the use of drones to clean the external walls of buildings is one of the possible uses in this high-rise metropolis.

In recent years, more than 2,000 ficus trees in many districts of Hong Kong have been attacked by Phauda flammans, a species of moth, including 100-year-old specimens on the Register of Old and Valuable Trees. Drones can be deployed to carry out surveillance, prevention and control measures.

What’s more, the Doraemon drone show recently held in Hong Kong was very well-received; the authorities and the industry may consider organizing educational activities such as an exhibition of these aircraft, a related economic forum, demonstration flights for different applications, aircraft pilot training, and more, so as to increase the public’s awareness and understanding of this emerging economy.

Second, we have to encourage cross-border cooperation and active pooling of experience.

The Chinese mainland has actively pursued the use of drones across cities and provinces, but not cross-border flights.

Following the demonstration of an eVTOL flying from Shenzhen’s Shekou Cruise Homeport to the Jiuzhou Port in Zhuhai within 20 minutes in February, Chongqing announced in April that it will promote the interprovincial low-altitude flight alliance of six provinces and one city, including Shaanxi, Hunan, Hubei, Yunnan and Guizhou, to try out interprovincial low-altitude flights. In May, Guangdong province announced the launch of the Chenzhou-Shaoguan-Foshan cross-provincial cultural tourism pilot demonstration.

The government should promote Hong Kong’s “Lion Rock Spirit” as demonstrated by the city’s Olympic athletes, and set ambitious targets and timetables for the development of the low-altitude economy as soon as possible, so as to ensure that the services can be implemented in a timely manner and create a growth point for the city in the innovative economy

However, none of them is experimenting with cross-boundary flights between the mainland and Hong Kong, at least for the time being. This is Hong Kong’s opportunity.

To facilitate cross-boundary manned services in the Shenzhen-Hong Kong loop, some people, including legislative councilors, have advocated the construction of helicopter and drone takeoff and landing points in Liantang and the Northern Metropolis adjacent to Shenzhen, and at the same time setting up a “co-location” facility at Hong Kong International Airport to facilitate direct connections for international visitors to the mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Therefore, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government ought to grasp the opportunity to establish the practice for the cross-boundary flight of drones. But the prerequisite is smooth internal and external coordination.

In addition to the CAD (regulations), joint efforts by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department and the Highways Department (sensors at roadside), the Fire Services Department (emergencies), the Hospital Authority (emergency medical services for cross-boundary passengers), and the Airport Authority (airport’s signal network management) are also required. To facilitate communication and information sharing among multiple departments, the government should establish a common operational picture (COP).

With geographic information at its core, the COP is a map-based cloud platform for real-time sharing of information to ensure seamless connectivity among relevant departments, so that they can command and respond in a timely manner in the event of an incident.

Next, the COP will need to connect with the mainland and the regulators in the GBA, seeking to align infrastructure such as technical standards, laws and regulations, and networks, and actively cooperate among various stakeholders, so as to give full play to Hong Kong’s advantages as an international shipping center and encourage other cities in the GBA to jointly build a world-class airport cluster, especially to accelerate the construction of intelligent transportation systems.

In this way, we can quickly explore a set of smart mobility solutions suitable for the GBA for reference by other provinces and cities. It can also be used as a demonstration of smart solutions for export to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other countries.

Lastly, Hong Kong should take note of international experience and participate in setting global industry standards.

One of the challenges in developing a low-altitude economy is skyway planning. It is necessary to avoid windy areas where drones may be blown off their flight paths, and to bypass aerial obstacles, including MTR networks and overhead transmission cables, as well as to comply with environmental constraints, such as specific protected areas of schools, hospitals and airports, and make sure the path is served by a 5G network.

These can be more complex than designing railway routes. Therefore, the authorities should use the geographic information system (GIS), which is good at integrating and analyzing complex data for planning low-altitude airspace superhighways. This advanced technology enables data of the topography, mountains, coasts, land use, real-time meteorological information and space above the main routes to be taken into account, to meet the needs of takeoff and landing points and major route access.

Further, consideration needs to be given to how to manage low-altitude traffic that may become very busy in the future? We can learn from the US, one of the most developed countries in the GA sector.

At the end of 2023, the US was operating 3,000 GA airports with more than 100,000 flights a day. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has developed a data-driven airway system that aggregates hundreds of flight updates daily through the GIS platform and displays them on route maps, all in one location. The system also facilitates the authorities in tracking the time, place, people and details of incidents involved in the event of an accident. “The modernization of our en-route charts system has streamlined the maintenance process across multiple charts … (and it) decreased opportunities for human error, as well as reduced production cost and time,” a FAA manager said in an industry sharing meeting.

Europe and the US have rich experience in the field of GA, while Hong Kong also has vast experience in air traffic control and air navigation, so it could assume the role of a superconnector and actively participate in international cooperation with overseas counterparts to drive innovation through partnerships and seek to participate in the development of industry standards in the emerging field of the low-altitude economy.

These include the FAA, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency Eurocontrol, and the World Economic Forum’s initiative to promote innovation in flight and the Advancing Aviation Innovation and Autonomous Technology for Everyone.  

At present, Hong Kong’s economic recovery is sluggish, and there is an urgent need to find new growth drivers. The government should promote Hong Kong’s “Lion Rock Spirit” as demonstrated by the city’s Olympic athletes, and set ambitious targets and timetables for the development of the low-altitude economy as soon as possible, so as to ensure that the services can be implemented in a timely manner and create a growth point for the city in the innovative economy.

The author is an adjunct professor, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering; Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences; and Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.