In late March, Threshold Aviation Group hosted the first U.S. China General Aviation Business Conference. The first day’s meetings were held at a hotel in Brea and on the second day everyone attended an aviation expo held in the Threshold hangar at Chino Airport, followed by a dinner at the Planes of Fame Air Museum.
Before the two-day conference, the Chinese visitors were invited to take a tour of California's aviation highlights, such as local airports, the Rosamond Sky Park live-in airport community near Mojave and the Los Angeles County Airshow at William J. Fox Airfield in Lancaster. The genesis of the conference is Threshold Aviation’s work to help Chinese companies build general aviation (GA) businesses in China. While airspace restrictions and lack of GA infrastructure are holding back development, there are also tremendous opportunities for GA in China. 

“This is a first opportunity for U.S.-based companies to meet the people in China who are responsible to a great extent [for fostering] the aviation business in China,” said Dr. Yuanyang Gao, director of the General Aviation Industry Research Center at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and also deputy secretary general of AOPA China. “And it represents an opportunity for U.S. companies to share their expertise in an area that is new to China—general aviation.” 

“There is huge pent-up demand for GA in China,” said Bradley Harker, commercial officer for the Foreign Commercial Service Section at the U.S. Embassy in China, “but the question is how quickly. When China decides to put its mind to something, it can absolutely grow.”

Harker noted that in terms of land mass, China is about the same size as the continental U.S. In GA terms, the U.S. far outstrips China, with 200,000 aircraft, 20,000 airports and 600 Part 141 flight schools. In China there are 2,500 GA aircraft, 300 GA airports and 20 flight schools, according to Harker. 

GA is limited in China because the government is focused on specific tasks and not leisure activities, he explained. “But the regulations are changing.” Currently about 70 percent of the country’s airspace is controlled by the military and inaccessible by GA. In some pilot cities, GA operators are allowed to fly below 3,000 feet, and the goal is to expand that to 9,000 feet in 2020. “This is the key,” he said. “If I fly GA in China, I need to fly higher than 3,000 feet.

“GA is currently being mentioned much more frequently by the government,” he added. The country’s 13th five-year plan anticipates GA functions such as emergency services, business aviation and GA clusters wher businesses can focus on GA activities. “The state council has said that GA is vital to China economic development and that it will be the engine of growth in China,” he said.

Harker encourages companies interested in developing GA in China to work with his office. The slow pace of change, the lack of airports, staff shortages and high business costs in China actually bode well for GA in the U.S., Harker said, because Chinese GA enthusiasts will come to the U.S. to buy GA products and learn to fly.