In the past July, the low-altitude economy sector was as hot as the scorching summer. On July 1, the newly revised Civil Aviation Law of the People's Republic of China officially came into effect, formally incorporating the low-altitude economy into national law. At the end of July, the 2026 International Low-Altitude Economy Expo was held in Shanghai, featuring a concentrated showcase of 452 exhibiting enterprises, 570 aircraft, and 65 first-release products and technologies. As a crucial carrier of new quality productive forces, the low-altitude economy has undergone years of pilot exploration, technological verification, and policy accumulation, ushering in a new stage of industrial development in 2026 and accelerating its transition from demonstration flights to normalized commercial operations. However, deep-seated challenges such as airspace constraints, technological bottlenecks, cost pressures, and infrastructure shortcomings remain prominent, requiring continuous efforts to break through and advance industrial development.
Entering a New Stage of Scaled Application
2026 marks the inaugural year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, and the low-altitude economy has officially been elevated to a national "emerging pillar industry." Its positioning in the national economy can be gleaned from the government work reports in recent years: from a "new growth engine" in 2024 to an "emerging industry" in 2025, and further to an "emerging pillar industry" in 2026. Behind these three strategic leaps over three years lies the comprehensive development of the low-altitude economy.
"2026 is expected to become the inaugural year of normalized operations for the low-altitude economy," Wang Fan, Deputy Director of the Science, Technology and Standards Institute at CCID Research Institute, told reporters from China Electronics News. "In recent years, China has accelerated the layout of low-altitude flight infrastructure. A three-dimensional support system integrating 'sky network + ground network' has initially taken shape. Many regions across the country are advancing the construction of intelligent hangars and low-altitude communication networks. Airspace management policies continue to be optimized, and a unified national low-altitude aeronautical chart and technical standards are being accelerated."
Since the beginning of this year, the legislative process for the low-altitude economy has comprehensively accelerated. On July 1, the newly revised Civil Aviation Law of the People's Republic of China officially came into effect, establishing a dedicated chapter on "Development Promotion" for the low-altitude economy for the first time. The conditions for normalized operations with "laws to abide by and regulations to follow" are now fully mature. In terms of technology, according to data from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), China's low-altitude economy market size reached 1.5 trillion yuan in 2025, with nearly 40,000 drone operating enterprises. Core technologies have achieved a critical leap from "following" to "partial leadership." In 2026, the low-altitude economy is shifting from conceptual exploration to a stage of rapid application scenario expansion and industrialization. Leading eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) manufacturers are approaching the commercialization stage, and normalized operation cases in B2B industrial inspection and logistics distribution have significantly increased.
The layout of the low-altitude industry in many regions has moved from "blueprints on paper" to the fast track of "implementation." Regions such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Chengdu-Chongqing region are accelerating the formation of a full-chain collaborative pattern from R&D and manufacturing to scenario implementation. Shenzhen is committed to building the "world's first city for the low-altitude economy." Last year, Shenzhen's drone cargo transport exceeded one million sorties, with 310 cargo routes and 8 inter-city logistics routes opened. Shanghai issued the Several Measures of Shanghai on Linking the Yangtze River Delta to Accelerate the Construction of an Advanced Manufacturing Cluster for the Low-Altitude Economy at the beginning of this year, steadily advancing towards becoming the "World eVTOL Capital." Anhui Province released the Announcement on Publishing the New Version of the Flight-Permitted Airspace Range for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Anhui Province in May, continuously releasing airspace resources to create a new highland for the national low-altitude economy... Local practices provide the most realistic scaled application scenarios for the low-altitude economy to transition from "taking off" to "being utilized and activated."
Sun Liye, Vice President of United Aircraft Group, told reporters from China Electronics News that the low-altitude economy is moving from the "pilot flights" and "concept verification" of the past few years into a new stage of normalized operations and scaled applications.
All Parties Accelerate the Construction of a Solid Safety Foundation
The core of normalized and scaled application lies not only in the ability to take off but also in flying safely and in an orderly manner.
In February this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) held a plenary meeting of the Leading Group for the Development of the Low-Altitude Industry, emphasizing the need to increase policy support for the innovative development of the low-altitude industry, accelerate standard pre-research, and establish and improve the industrial standard system. It also highlighted the need to focus on building a solid safety foundation, strengthen the management of the manufacturing industry, attach great importance to low-altitude radio security, cybersecurity, and data security, and construct a low-altitude equipment testing and verification system. In May this year, the CAAC officially established the Department of Low-Altitude Safety to fill the regulatory gaps in the entire chain from planning compilation, airworthiness certification, to market supervision, addressing the characteristics of diverse low-altitude aircraft, scattered scenarios, and high difficulties in safety supervision.
"In 2026, China's low-altitude economy management system has formed a dual-layer architecture of 'top-level coordination + industry regulation'," Wang Fan said.
A relevant official from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) emphasized that "without safety, there is no low-altitude economy." During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the development of China's low-altitude economy will proceed steadily according to the "three priorities and three subsequences" principle: cargo before passengers, isolation before integration, and suburbs before urban areas. Under the premise of strictly controlling risks and ensuring safety, mature scenarios will be gradually promoted to cultivate and expand new application scenarios for the low-altitude economy.
"Safety is the bottom line of all our work," Sun Liye told reporters. In the R&D of the TD550, the first industrial-grade unmanned helicopter in China to obtain the Type Certificate (TC) from the CAAC, United Aircraft Group adopted multiple safety strategies, including flight control redundancy design, navigation redundancy design, flight envelope protection control, emergency power supply, no-fly zone avoidance, and autonomous fault monitoring, isolation, and alarming.
Shanghai AutoFlight Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "AutoFlight") is also following the "three priorities and three subsequences" guideline, steadily advancing the airworthiness certification of its passenger models while exploring the implementation of more low-altitude logistics scenarios.
"We have also been continuously combining the characteristics of local industries to conduct sustainable and high-frequency real-scenario low-altitude logistics verification flights," Zhong Ruihua, Brand Director of AutoFlight, told reporters. During the Dragon Boat Festival this year, AutoFlight's large cargo eVTOL successfully completed a cargo flight in Cangnan, Wenzhou. The flight carried nearly 200 kilograms of supplies over a distance of 12.8 kilometers. Through this aerial corridor, a single cargo delivery takes only a few minutes, improving the timeliness by more than ten times compared to traditional shipping.
Industrial Maturity Still Requires Multi-Party Efforts to Break Through Bottlenecks
Although industry insiders generally believe that the low-altitude economy will enter a new stage of development in 2026, this does not mean the industry is already mature. Currently, the low-altitude economy is still in the initial stage of "scale inception," and industrial development still faces core challenges.
Li Xiaofeng, Dean of the Hangzhou Branch of the Yangtze River Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University, Zhejiang, and Director of the Zhejiang General Aviation Development Research Center, judges that in the short term, the low-altitude economy will show a gradual trend of maturing in tiers based on pilot scenarios.
A relevant person in charge from Zero Gravity Aircraft Industry (Hefei) Co., Ltd. frankly pointed out five core pain points in the industry during an interview with reporters: First, airspace is scarce, making it difficult to quickly connect the low-altitude road network across the board; second, infrastructure is imperfect, with insufficient facilities for takeoff and landing, charging, communication, and navigation; third, rules are not sound, and regulations, standards, safety supervision, and liability definitions need to be improved; fourth, public cognition and safety trust need to be cultivated, requiring the industry to accumulate user trust through a large amount of normalized demonstration operations; fifth, professional talents are scarce, with a severe shortage of supply in related professional fields.
In addition, cost issues are also restricting the large-scale commercial implementation of the low-altitude economy. "Currently, the low-altitude economy faces pain points such as high R&D and manufacturing costs for single aircraft, large investments in takeoff and landing points, hangars, and charging infrastructure, significantly higher operating costs than labor before scaling, and long profitability cycles," Wang Fan said.
In Sun Liye's view, the key to breaking through lies in the coordinated advancement of three arrows: "building aircraft, deploying infrastructure, and capturing applications" — using suitable aircraft to meet scenario needs, supporting scaled flights with comprehensive infrastructure, and then using rich application scenarios to feed back into manufacturing and infrastructure, forming a sustainable closed-loop business model.
"In the next five years, the maturity of the low-altitude economy industry can be measured by 'three normalizations'," Li Xiaofeng analyzed. "First, the normalization of flight activities, where urban low-altitude logistics and government inspections achieve normalized operations of over a thousand sorties per day; second, the closed-loop of business models, where low-altitude economy enterprises no longer highly rely on government subsidies but form a sustainable market-oriented profitability path; third, the maturity of the governance system, where airspace management achieves dynamic allocation, and cross-departmental and cross-regional data interoperability and equipment mutual recognition are realized."
Therefore, Li Xiaofeng is most optimistic about three types of application scenarios: low-altitude smart logistics, low-altitude emergency rescue, and low-altitude production operations. "In terms of low-altitude smart logistics, there are rigid timeliness demands for island transportation, mountain distribution, urban instant retail, and medical emergency material transportation, where the efficiency advantage of low-altitude transport is irreplaceable. Taizhou and Zhoushan in Zhejiang have already implemented normalized cross-sea drone logistics, verifying the feasibility of the model," he said.
Industrial development is not achieved overnight. In the future, the low-altitude economy industry needs to gradually resolve industrial pain points, truly activate the potential of the trillion-yuan new track, and steadily grow into a core emerging pillar industry driving the high-quality development of China's economy.
Author | Lu Yichen Editor | Qiu Jiangyong Art Designer | Maliya Supervisor | Qi Xu