VIDEO: EHang launches AAM Sandbox Initiative in Thailand, to fast-track future commercial operations of its EH216‑S eVTOL aircraft

EHang and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of Thai­land have announced an Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Sand­box Ini­tia­tive, where it aims to fast-track the future com­mer­cial oper­a­tions of EHang’s EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL air­craft in the coun­try

In a press release issued ear­li­er this week, EHang said con­tin­u­ous tri­al oper­a­tions with its EH216‑S have already begun at the first sand­box area in Bangkok, with plans to expand to more sand­box areas across Thai­land.

Conor Yang, Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer of EHang, said: “This demon­stra­tion show­cased not only rou­tine flight capa­bil­i­ties but also the core safe­ty prin­ci­ples inte­gral to our cer­ti­fied EH216‑S air­craft.

“The AAM Sand­box Ini­tia­tive in Thai­land serves as a piv­otal mod­el for the region. Our goal is to lever­age the oper­a­tional and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work estab­lished here as a blue­print for expan­sion into oth­er South­east Asian mar­kets, bring­ing safe, sus­tain­able AAM to the wider region glob­al­ly.”

Dur­ing the launch event, the EH216‑S com­plet­ed a series of point-A-to-point‑B autonomous flights with con­sis­tent sta­bil­i­ty, demon­strat­ing its inte­grat­ed flight con­trol sys­tems and oper­a­tional reli­a­bil­i­ty.

The event gath­ered senior offi­cials from the CAAT and the Min­istry of Trans­port (MOT) of Thai­land, along with key indus­try part­ners includ­ing Aer­i­al Sea Ven­tures, Ener­gy Absolute, Ami­ta Tech­nol­o­gy, G Cap­i­tal, Chi­na Har­bour Engi­neer­ing Com­pa­ny, Bangkok Air­ways, Viet­Jet, and Tahi­ra Group from Malaysia.

Air Chief Mar­shal Man­at Cha­vanapray­oon, Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the CAAT, said: “We are high­ly impressed with the cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy and demon­strat­ed safe­ty of EHang’s EH216‑S dur­ing these flights.

“At the CAAT, we are guid­ing Thailand’s tran­si­tion into a new era of AAM, where safe­ty and pub­lic trust remain our high­est pri­or­i­ties. Through our ‘prove it safe, then scale’ approach, we have explored a clear path toward com­mer­cial oper­a­tions, with the tar­get of launch­ing the world’s first com­mer­cial eVTOL oper­a­tion ser­vices with­in the next three months lever­ag­ing the Ini­tia­tive. The future of AAM in Thai­land will be safe by design, ambi­tious in vision, and real­ized through tan­gi­ble action.”

EHang also held a tech­ni­cal meet­ing with CAAT offi­cials, pre­sent­ing the EH216‑S’s com­pre­hen­sive safe­ty archi­tec­ture, Unmanned Air­craft Sys­tem Traf­fic Man­age­ment inte­gra­tion, risk assess­ment frame­work, and flight-test­ing method­ol­o­gy.

This mul­ti-par­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Ini­tia­tive rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step toward gain­ing local reg­u­la­to­ry approval for future com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in sand­box areas across Thai­land.

Under the Ini­tia­tive, EHang’s local part­ners will pro­vide essen­tial oper­a­tional sup­port, rang­ing from infra­struc­ture to oper­a­tional teams. They plan to expand the sand­box areas to Pat­taya, Koh Larn, Phuket, Koh Samui and many oth­er loca­tions in Thai­land for more sight­see­ing flight routes and trans­porta­tion ser­vices.

Thai­land, South­east Asia’s sec­ond-largest econ­o­my, rep­re­sents a strate­gi­cal­ly vital mar­ket for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty. This is dri­ven by its strong ser­vice sec­tor, thriv­ing tourism indus­try, and proac­tive gov­ern­ment poli­cies pro­mot­ing smart trans­porta­tion and sus­tain­able tech­nol­o­gy.

The coun­try’s dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed urban areas and per­sis­tent traf­fic con­ges­tion make it an ide­al envi­ron­ment for deploy­ing AAM solu­tions. Major cities such as Bangkok are par­tic­u­lar­ly well-suit­ed for air taxi ser­vices, offer­ing sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket poten­tial.

This poten­tial was clear­ly demon­strat­ed last Novem­ber when the EH216‑S suc­cess­ful­ly con­duct­ed three days of human-car­ry­ing flights in cen­tral Bangkok, show­cas­ing its prac­ti­cal capa­bil­i­ties in real-world AAM appli­ca­tions.

Panya Chu­pan­it, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of Min­istry of Trans­port of Thai­land, said: “The MOT is ful­ly com­mit­ted to advanc­ing sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion, and the devel­op­ment of AAM technology—exemplified by EHang’s inno­v­a­tive eVTOL solutions—is inte­gral to this vision.

“We are work­ing close­ly with part­ners across sec­tors to posi­tion Thai­land as a region­al AAM hub, in line with our nation­al goals for car­bon neu­tral­i­ty and smart, con­nect­ed cities. ”

Luong Pham of Aer­i­al Sea Ven­tures added: “With the EH216‑S, we are enter­ing an era where trav­el is mea­sured in min­utes, not hours, con­nect­ing water­ways, islands and remote areas with unprece­dent­ed effi­cien­cy.

“With the strong sup­port of the CAAT and MOT, we are now months—not years—away from com­mer­cial­iza­tion in Thai­land. We look for­ward to posi­tion­ing Thai­land as the region­al hub for AAM across South­east Asia.”