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EHang’s pilotless eVTOL aircraft completes first passenger flights in Thailand, with commercial operations planned by 2025

EHang’s EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL air­craft has com­plet­ed debut pas­sen­ger flights at the Queen Sirik­it Nation­al Con­ven­tion Cen­ter in cen­tral Bangkok, Thai­land’s cap­i­tal city.

The flights mark a new mile­stone for expand­ing EHang’s eVTOL flight foot­print to the 18th coun­try glob­al­ly. With the per­mis­sion of the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of Thai­land (CAAT), the EHangis also plan­ning to con­duct flight tests on EH216‑S in Thai­land and launch com­mer­cial flight oper­a­tions in var­i­ous regions such as Phuket and Koh Samui by 2025.

Conor Yang, CFO of EHang, said: “The debut pas­sen­ger flights of our EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL in Thai­land is a key mile­stone in EHang’s ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment and that is a strong boost in pro­mot­ing the trans­for­ma­tion of glob­al advanced urban air mobil­i­ty.

“We aim to apply our pilot­less eVTOL prod­ucts and solu­tions in the South­east Asian mar­ket. In the future, with the strong sup­port of the CAAT, we will coop­er­ate with our local part­ners to for­mu­late a mod­el for reg­u­lar UAM oper­a­tions in Thai­land, con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of the urban air mobil­i­ty mar­ket in South­east Asia and world­wide.“

With the lead­er­ship of the CAAT and sup­port of the Min­istry of Trans­port of Thai­land, EHang was invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the Thai­land Drone Exhi­bi­tion & Sym­po­sium 2024.

At the event, EHang con­duct­ed pas­sen­ger flights for three con­sec­u­tive days with the Demon­stra­tion Flight Per­mit issued by the CAAT. Mr. Pha­su Mani­pan­ti, CEO of Sky Image Tech, EHang’s part­ner in Thai­land, Mr. Sor­a­sit Thong­jeen, First Offi­cer, Flight Oper­a­tions of Bangkok Air­ways among oth­er pas­sen­gers took a ride on the EH216‑S.

This ground-break­ing flight event was also wit­nessed by the dis­tin­guished guests includ­ing Mr. Chaiy­atham Prom­sorn, Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of Min­istry of Trans­port of Thai­land; Tao Ma, Direc­tor of the Inter­na­tion­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Orga­ni­za­tion; Shi­jun Yin, Vice Pres­i­dent of Chi­nese Soci­ety of Aero­nau­tics and Astro­nau­tics and the for­mer Chief Engi­neer of the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na; Sut­tipong Kong­pool, Direc­tor of the CAAT and Kajon­pat Mak­lin, Deputy Direc­tor of the CAAT.

The EH216‑S is capa­ble of ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing, elim­i­nat­ing the need for tra­di­tion­al air­port run­ways, and can con­duct point-to-point air trans­porta­tion in city cen­ters, effec­tive­ly alle­vi­at­ing Thai­land’s issues with ground traf­fic con­ges­tion.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Thai­land is a coun­try with many islands and abun­dant tourism resources. Tra­di­tion­al water trans­porta­tion meth­ods are time-con­sum­ing, and the appli­ca­tion of EH216‑S can pro­vide effi­cient and acces­si­ble island-hop­ping air trans­porta­tion ser­vices, meet­ing demands for trans­porta­tion solu­tions in the tourism indus­try.

The CAAT plans to open flight tests for cer­ti­fied eVTOLs in var­i­ous loca­tions in Thai­land, and in 2025, will tar­get to open com­mer­cial flight oper­a­tions for cer­ti­fied eVTOLs in cer­tain areas to joint­ly pro­mote the nation’s open­ing of low-alti­tude air­space and air mobil­i­ty mar­ket.

Kong­pool added: “This demo flights marks sig­nif­i­cant progress in inte­grat­ing UAM solu­tions into Thai­land’s avi­a­tion indus­try.

“EHang’s EH216‑S is cur­rent­ly the world’s only eVTOL with air­wor­thi­ness cer­tifi­cates, and we look for­ward to its com­mer­cial flight oper­a­tions in cer­tain areas of Thai­land next year, which will serve as sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to Thai­land’s UAM roadmap devel­op­ment plan.”

Conor Yang EHangs CFO speak­ing at this years Thai­land Drone Exhi­bi­tion Sym­po­sium Cred­it EHang
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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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