Page 14 - AAA MARCH - APRIL 2013 Online Magazine

FEATURE CHINA BUSINESS JETS

Business in the Air

The role of business aviation in China is a complex one.
Demand is massive, regulation is tricky, competition is
strong and the future is hard to map out. But confidence
remains, and potential players are queuing up to join
the industry. By Jeremy Torr

In the twelfth blueprInt fIve- yuan (US$15.8 million), the prospects for
Year Plan, announced 2011, the Ruling the private and business aviation sector
Party pledged that aviation was earmarked would look to be very rosy. But as would-
as one of the key sectors to maintain be China operators know, it can take days
China’s strong economic development, to file and get the green light for a simple
and to “promote the development of private flight application. This is partly
general-purpose aviation, reform the because of the lack of certified operators,
airspace management mechanism, and partly through a legacy tangle of onerous
improve the efficiency of utilisation of legislation, and partly due to the unique
airspace resources”. status of airspace regulation in China.
That sounds like the good news “There is an invisible threshold for
it is, and tie-ups with Boeing, Airbus, operators or MROs – they have to join
Honeywell and many of the world’s major hands with local airport authorities,”
ABOVE: While Cessna aircraft may engine-makers underline the importance said Kelvin Wu, VP of North Asia sales
have had less of a presence in that China places on being right up there at Cessna, in an interview with the South
China in 2012 as compared to giants in the aviation industry. China Morning Post. “The prospect … is
Gulfstream and Bombardier, they So with some 50,000 to 100,000 so lucrative the airport doesn’t want to
are not unpopular either Chinese nationals worth over 100 million pass it to other investors.”
14 ASIAN AIRLINES & AIRPORTS MARCH / APRIL 2013 WWW.ASIANAIRLINES-AIRPORTS.COM