EHang announced that its EH216-S completed its inaugural demo flight in downtown Shanghai. It has also officially launched the regular trial operation of the eVTOL sightseeing routes by the Huangpu River at Longhua Airport in Shanghai, in preparation for the following commercial operations in Shanghai. This move aims to realize the urban air mobility in mega central cities.
“Longhua Airport is regarded as the only airport in Shanghai downtown area with apron airspace and is home to the East China General Aviation Service Center of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC),” said the company in a press statement. “As an important base for the high-quality development of Shanghai’s low-altitude economy, Longhua Airport offers ideal conditions for various low-altitude economic activities, including aerial mobility, tourism and sightseeing, emergency rescue and logistics. This flight not only showcased EH216-S’s capabilities for commercial applications in urban sightseeing and travel scenarios, but also laid a solid foundation for its future gradual implementation and realization of regular commercial operations of urban air taxis in the Yangtze River Delta region centered around Shanghai.
“The EH216-S for this debut flight is one of the aircraft products that EHang has delivered to its customer Shanghai Hynfar Aviation Co. Hynfar Aviation is the pioneering company in Shanghai focusing on eVTOL operations and an eVTOL operation partner of Longhua Airport. Going forward, EHang and Hynfar Aviation, and New Margin Eastwood Fund, will take Longhua Airport as the base, to develop a variety of low-altitude economy eVTOL operational scenarios such as passenger transportation and urban sightseeing in the entire area of Shanghai and further covering cities and regions along the Yangtze River Delta G60 Science and Innovation Corridor (including nine cities across Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces). This collaboration aims to promote more cities to realize new models of air taxi transportation.
“The Action Plan for High-Quality Development of Shanghai Low-Altitude Economy Industry (2024–2027) aims to position Shanghai as a leading hub for innovation, commercial applications, and operational services in the low-altitude economy, with the core industry scale expected to exceed RMB50 billion by 2027, creating an internationally influential “City in the Sky”. The Plan specifically mentions the goal of achieving more than 100 low-altitude flight service applications in commercial scenarios such as logistics transportation, emergency rescue, cultural tourism, smart cities, and passenger transportation by 2027. It also promotes pilot projects for commercial passenger transport across and between major transportation hubs, such as Hongqiao International Airport, Pudong International Airport, and Longhua Airport, in addition to five new intra-city stops within Shanghai.”
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