EHang to conduct trial flights in Canada after receiving Special Flight Operations Certificate

EHang’s 216 autonomous aer­i­al vehi­cle (AAV) has obtained a Spe­cial Flight Oper­a­tions Cer­tifi­cate from the Trans­port Cana­da Civ­il Avi­a­tion (TCCA), allow­ing it to con­duct tri­al flights in Québec Province.

It was appraised by the Inter­na­tion­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Organ­i­sa­tion (ICAO) and oth­er avi­a­tion author­i­ties at its 75th Anniver­sary cer­e­mo­ny in Sep­tem­ber 2019, and this news rep­re­sents anoth­er mile­stone in reg­u­la­to­ry break­through for the AAV.

This per­mit is the first of its kind for peri­od­ic oper­a­tions of pas­sen­ger-grade AAVs in North Amer­i­ca, and EHang added that the achieve­ment is ‘an impor­tant foun­da­tion for future urban air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions in Cana­da’.

Huazhi Hu, EHang Founder, Chair­man and CEO, said: “We are pleased to see EHang 216 receiv­ing such an impor­tant cer­tifi­cate from TCCA, fol­low­ing con­sec­u­tive flight approvals received from avi­a­tion author­i­ties in dif­fer­ent coun­tries, includ­ing the U.S. Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion, the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of Nor­way and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion of Chi­na.

“It con­veys a pos­i­tive sig­nal from glob­al reg­u­la­tors to estab­lish a sup­port­ive and sus­tain­able reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment for the UAM indus­try. As a leader in the indus­try, EHang will con­tin­ue to work with our cus­tomers and part­ners to pro­vide safe, autonomous and eco-friend­ly air mobil­i­ty solu­tions to the world.”

This lat­est announce­ment adds to a grow­ing list of achieve­ments for EHang in 2020. In May, it obtained the world’s first com­mer­cial pilot oper­a­tion approval of pas­sen­ger-grade AAVs for air logis­tics uses, and plans to build the world’s first E‑port for AAV ser­vices in Hezhou, which plans to be ful­ly oper­a­tional by the end of the year.