China: “Aerofugia Joins Growing List of Certified eVTOLs”

Aerofu­gia announced this week, it has obtained the CCAR-135 oper­a­tion cer­tifi­cate issued by the South­west Region­al Admin­is­tra­tion of the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na, reports a press release.

The com­pa­ny, a sub­sidiary of Chi­na’s lead­ing car mak­er, Geely, has become the first Chi­nese eVTOL host man­u­fac­tur­er cleared to con­duct long-term, short-dis­tance aer­i­al sight­see­ing and irreg­u­lar pas­sen­ger trans­port ser­vices with one to 9‑seat air­craft. 

The com­pa­ny views this as a ref­er­ence mod­el for exist­ing gen­er­al avi­a­tion oper­a­tors aim­ing to inte­grate eVTOLs into low-alti­tude tourism and intra-city logis­tics.

Accord­ing to the company’s web­site, the Aerofu­gia E200 eVTOL is a six-seater eVTOL air­craft with a range of 200 km. Devel­oped for both urban and region­al trav­el, the company’s ambi­tion is to com­bine auto­mo­tive-grade man­u­fac­tur­ing with aero­space inno­va­tion.

The release explains, “In the future, Aerofu­gia can pro­vide a ref­er­ence path for exist­ing gen­er­al avi­a­tion oper­a­tors to quick­ly use eVTOL air­craft to car­ry out low-alti­tude sight­see­ing and low-alti­tude trans­porta­tion.”

CCAR-135 Air Oper­a­tor Cer­tifi­cate is an admin­is­tra­tive license issued by the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na (CAAC) that approves avi­a­tion oper­a­tors to engage in spe­cif­ic types of oper­a­tions. It is a nec­es­sary licence for civ­il avi­a­tion enter­pris­es to oper­ate com­mer­cial­ly and is the basis for ensur­ing pas­sen­ger safe­ty.

The release con­tin­ues, “The issuance of an oper­at­ing cer­tifi­cate requires a series of com­plex and rig­or­ous review pro­ce­dures, includ­ing eval­u­a­tion and review of oper­at­ing plans, per­son­nel and equip­ment, organ­i­sa­tion­al struc­ture, finan­cial rev­enue and expen­di­ture.”

Aerofugia’s entry into the cer­ti­fied eVTOL space strength­ens a grow­ing nation­al project to unlock the low-alti­tude econ­o­my, with Chi­nese reg­u­la­tors and man­u­fac­tur­ers push­ing to advance both autonomous and crewed aer­i­al mobil­i­ty.

This devel­op­ment fol­lows in the wake of a sim­i­lar mile­stone achieved by Guangzhou-based EHang, who recent­ly became the first eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er glob­al­ly to receive full reg­u­la­to­ry approval for com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger ser­vices.

While EHang pio­neered com­mer­cial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for autonomous air taxis, Aerofugia’s approval opens the door for pilot­ed eVTOL ser­vices. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.aerofugia.com

(Top image: Aerofu­gia E200 on dis­play at the third Civ­il Avi­a­tion Sci­ence and Inno­va­tion Exhi­bi­tion, Bei­jing — May 26th-28th)

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