The new Civil Aviation Law takes effect, making low-altitude economy flights more stable

From drone food delivery and pesticide spraying to urban aerial inspections and low-altitude aerial filming, the low-altitude economy has long quietly seeped into the daily lives of residents in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. As a forerunner in the national low-altitude economy, Guangdong Province has already gathered more than 15k companies across the low-altitude industry chain, accounting for more than one third of the country’s total. Drone manufacturing, application scenario development, and supporting services have formed a complete ecosystem.

Another side of the industry’s rapid growth is the widespread confusion caused by lagging rules: Where exactly are the boundaries of legal airspace? What approval workflow should declarations follow? What standards must flying qualifications meet? For a tiny drone, what exactly counts as compliant flight?

“Mainstream navigation maps like Amap used in daily life adopt national standard coordinate systems, but drone airspace declaration requires submitting WGS-84 coordinates.” A drone company told reporters that at the operational level, the low-altitude industry still faces many similar technical obstacles—information barriers stack one after another. Just figuring out “who to contact and what standards to declare under” takes a great deal of effort, and some people even start “illegal black flights,” bringing significant confusion to aviation safety management.

On July 1, the newly revised Civil Aviation Law of the People’s Republic of China officially took effect, for the first time establishing a制度 framework for the low-altitude economy at the national legal level. Li Mengyi, general manager of Guangdong Low-Altitude Safety Technology Co., Ltd., feels deeply about this. Previously there were some drone management regulations, but compared with the law, their legal force levels and scope of constraints were limited. “Now that we have legal protection, when we focus on daily governance and establish cross-department coordination mechanisms, we will have more充分 legal basis.”

The core breakthroughs of this amendment are concentrated in several key areas. First, for the first time at the legal level, it establishes a system for drone airworthiness certification and a unique product identification code—each drone will have a traceable “digital ID.” Second, it writes into law items such as the division of low-altitude airspace and the construction of regulatory service platforms. As a result, local regulatory departments undertake combined responsibilities for planning, coordination, and safety management. Third, general aviation operating permits and flight operation permits are trending toward integration, and the entry pathway is somewhat simplified. However, requirements such as safety responsibility, insurance underwriting, and data traceability are becoming more systematically structured, reflecting the national regulatory approach of “combining regulation with facilitation.”

The low-altitude economy is entering a new stage of legalization. The subsequent supporting implementation rules, the improvement of regulatory platform construction, and the refinement of cross-regional coordination mechanisms still require sustained efforts from all parties. But for companies on the front line of the industry, having a legal basis for action is the biggest source of certainty.

(Editor: Wen Jing)

Keywords:

                                                            Low-altitude economy