Tianlux China Aviation Observations (Nov 10)

If you want to know whether China’s “low-altitude economy” is just a slogan or a market, this week gave you a clearer answer. Orders at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) and a very concrete project in Dunhuang show where capital, aircraft and local governments are actually moving.

At CIIE, low-altitude orders did not stay on slides. Vertaxi announced intent orders for 200 M1 eVTOLs, including 100 from Saudi Arabia’s Aerial Solutions for Middle East logistics. Lanyi Aviation signed a 60 aircraft LOI with Xingyun General Aviation, and TCab Tech unveiled an order for 350 E20 eVTOLs with UAE based Autocraft, roughly USD 1 billion on paper and widely described as China’s largest single eVTOL order so far.

Dunhuang is the other important test bed, far from Shanghai’s expo halls. Aridge (formerly XPeng AeroHT) has agreed to supply 200 flying cars for a low altitude self drive tourism route in the desert around the ancient Silk Road hub. By July 2026, tourists are expected to fly between Crescent Lake and the Yadan Geopark along what officials describe as the Northwest’s first low altitude self drive corridor.

Five companies are already locked into that ecosystem. Operators, airport service firms and tourism companies have signed up to build and manage five “flight camps” along the route, turning remote landing sites into nodes with charging, maintenance and visitor services. That looks like infrastructure for a 10 to 20 year product, not a one season publicity stunt.

The policy signal from Beijing is hard to misread. At the National People’s Congress standing committee meeting on October 27, Zhang Yuzhuo, who heads the State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), China’s state asset chief manager, listed the low altitude economy alongside quantum technology, biomanufacturing, commercial space and marine industries as sectors receiving “advance planning”.

The comparison with high speed rail is deliberate. Fifteen years ago, many questioned whether China needed dense HSR coverage between second and third tier cities. Today those lines carry billions of passengers per year and anchor real estate and industrial planning, and Beijing now uses very similar language for low altitude routes and vertiports that it once used for HSR corridors and stations.

For investors and operators, the real question is who captures value. Manufacturers such as Aridge and Vertaxi want to become the default platforms for aircraft and software. Tourism operators focus on owning the customer relationship, pricing and brand. Local governments, by funding and permitting vertiports at specific scenic sites, effectively control access rights in much the same way they control HSR station slots.

Dunhuang’s design points to a three way split rather than a winner takes all outcome. Aridge gets hardware sales and global coverage, operators and tourism firms get revenue from branded routes and packages, and Dunhuang secures investment, higher per capita spend and a template it can sell to other inland cities that are searching for new growth stories.

The scale Beijing is targeting explains the pace. Official projections put the domestic low altitude economy at around CNY 1.5 trillion by 2025 and roughly CNY 3.5 trillion by 2035. On current plans, each “flight camp” is more than a helipad. It is a small hub with power, ground support and higher end accommodation that can support repeat business rather than one off sightseeing flights.

There is also a quiet international strategy in how routes are chosen. While Europe and the United States focus on complex urban air mobility pilots, China is accumulating commercial flight hours in sparsely populated regions where airspace conflicts and local opposition are minimal. That pattern echoes earlier electric vehicle and autonomy pilots where Chinese companies collected operational data earlier by running large scale trials on public roads.

For foreign partners, this is no longer a theoretical market. The question is not whether China will build low altitude routes, it is how far and how fast. The practical decision is where to plug in, whether as aircraft supplier, as operator, as services partner, or through financing structures that back local governments and ecosystems rather than standalone OEMs.