A US aircraft specialist is looking to cash in on China's increasing demand for pilots and its resolve to open up the sky to general aviation.
Headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, Textron Inc, has built a factory exclusively to make aircraft for pilot training in Shenyang of Liaoning province. Textron owns brands such as Bell Helicopter and Cessna aircraft.
"For both Cessna and Bell Helicopter, clearly the biggest market opportunity is in China," said Scott C. Donnelly, president and chief executive officer of Textron.
A report by Boeing, released on Sept 16, predicted that China will need 70,600 pilots and 96,400 aircrew members in the next 20 years.
However, Textron's decision was initiated years before Boeing's report. In 2007, Textron built an important partnership with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC) located in Shenyang, Liaoning province in Northeast China, to produce the Cessna 162 Skycatcher light sport aircraft exclusively for pilot training.
Although the factory only commenced production this year, Textron expects the production volume will reach 300 aircraft a year. More than 1,000 orders have arrived so far, of which 70 percent are from Canada and the United States.
"This is the first time we have a partner in manufacturing aircraft outside the US," said Donnelly, adding Textron looked all over the world for the right partner.
The decision was made not just to save costs, so as to make the aircraft affordable to trainee pilots, but also to gain a foothold in China's huge aviation market, he said.
Donnelly sees the wide gap in the number of Cessna aircraft flying in China and the US as a big reason for optimism.
There are a total of 208 Cessna airplanes (24 Citations, 10 Caravans and 174 Pistons) in China, while in the US the number is 83,314 (3,675 Citations, 600 Caravans and 79,039 Pistons), more than 400 times that of China, according to figures from Textron.
"The gap results from the (restricted) air space," Donnelly explained.
More business people in China have started to buy business jets and a growing number of people want to learn to fly.
But the restrictions on both business jets and pilot training are still stiff, making the procedure extremely complicated.
"China has more businesses than ever before, so once the air space is allowed to utilize general aviation, you will see many businesses benefiting from it," Donnelly said.
Donnelly added that the aviation sector has a heavy reliance on general aviation, and he found what the Chinese government has been saying and doing is very encouraging.
"It has been clearly moving in the direction of seeing growth in general aviation," he said.
A survey by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said 20,535 persons had received aircraft pilot licenses from the CAAC by the end of last November.
