EHang, China Southern Airlines General Aviation Form Collaboration “to Pioneer eVTOL Autonomous Operations for Low-Altitude Economy”

EHang announced this week a sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with Chi­na South­ern Air­lines Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Com­pa­ny (CSGAC), an air­craft ser­vice provider and emerg­ing busi­ness of Chi­na South­ern Air­lines Com­pa­ny, reports a press release.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion is to focus on EHang’s AAV flight oper­a­tions along­side com­pre­hen­sive sup­port “to joint­ly cul­ti­vate inno­v­a­tive solu­tions for the low-alti­tude econ­o­my (LAE),” explains the release.

The two com­pa­nies aim to estab­lish EH216‑S oper­a­tion demon­stra­tion sites for LAE tourism at the Zhuhai Jiuzhou Air­port and the Zhuhai Chime­l­ong Ocean King­dom, as well as oth­er tourist des­ti­na­tions in Zhuhai, with the aim “to launch rou­tine low-alti­tude flight ser­vices and expe­ri­en­tial activ­i­ties.”

The part­ner­ship will also explore the devel­op­ment of diverse use cas­es for autonomous eVTOL air­craft in islands near Zhuhai, includ­ing inter-island car­go trans­porta­tion, emer­gency response and med­ical res­cue trans­porta­tion ser­vices.

EHang and CSGAC will use their respec­tive strengths and expe­ri­ence to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive sup­port for low-alti­tude flight ser­vices. This includes oper­a­tional team train­ing, ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture con­struc­tion, flight ser­vice plat­form devel­op­ment and main­te­nance stan­dard estab­lish­ment. 

Zhao Wang, COO of EHang, com­ment­ed, “Togeth­er with CSGAC, we will estab­lish demon­stra­tion sites for pilot­less eVTOL oper­a­tions in the Greater Bay Area and spear­head safe, sus­tain­able and effi­cient low-alti­tude oper­a­tions.”

Erbao Li, Chair­man of CSGAC, added, “As a lead­ing gen­er­al avi­a­tion com­pa­ny in Chi­na, CSGAC is active­ly explor­ing expan­sion into the emerg­ing low-alti­tude indus­try. This coop­er­a­tion will cre­ate inno­v­a­tive arche­types for this par­tic­u­lar econ­o­my econ­o­my, unlock­ing new growth oppor­tu­ni­ties for the gen­er­al avi­a­tion indus­try and dri­ving the high-qual­i­ty advance­ment of the low-alti­tude econ­o­my indus­try chain in the Guang­dong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.”

Back­ground

CSGAC’s exten­sive core busi­ness port­fo­lio includes off­shore oil and gas plat­form flight ser­vices, pow­er line patrol flights, emer­gency res­cue, heli­copter escrow and pub­lic ser­vices. 

The com­pa­ny is also active­ly devel­op­ing the low-alti­tude econ­o­my with new con­sumer-ori­ent­ed ser­vices such as gen­er­al avi­a­tion heli­copter train­ing and main­te­nance, short-haul trans­porta­tion, aer­i­al sight­see­ing and unmanned aer­i­al vehi­cle ser­vices. 

CSGAC’s pri­ma­ry oper­a­tional bases are locat­ed in Zhuhai and Zhan­jiang in Guang­dong, Sanya in Hainan and Xingcheng in Liaon­ing, pro­vid­ing nation­wide ser­vice cov­er­age.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.ehang.com

https://www.ch-aviation.com/airlines/CZ1

(Images: EHang)

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