On The Reform Of China’s Air Space Legal System And The Development Of General Aviation

Civil aviation industry is booming in China, where the annual passenger number of air transportation ranks the second place in the world and is still growing steadily. However, on the other side of what was achieved by public air transportation, the general aviation has been suffering from the depressed development. Public air transportation and general aviation are two sides of a coin. They serve different objects, different missions, and play different roles in daily operation. Neither of them should be abandoned. This research proposes to discover the hidden reason after the depressed development from the air space management perspective, and then provide with solutions.The main text is divided into six chapters:Chapter 1 is the introduction. It introduces the background of this research. It also summarizes previous research on this topic and points out the innovations of this thesis.Chapter 2 focuses on the historical origin and the development of China’s civil aviation law. The two sections in this chapter introduce the history of China’s civil aviation law prior and after the reform and opening-up separately. After reading this chapter, audiences could gain basic acknowledgment of China’s civil aviation legal system.Chapter 3 begins to investigate the regulation system of air space management. By carefully comparing the articles of law and regulations, this chapter checked the legal aspects of air space division, air traffic service, and submission and approval of flight plan. By doing this research and giving brief comment on these legal aspects, it would be easier to discuss the legal problems within the management system in the next chapter.Chapter 4 points out two kinds of problems in China’s air space management system. The first is spatial problem, which indicates that general aviation aircraft lacks sufficient air space to operate. The second is time problem, which indicates that the approval process of the general aviation flight plan is too complicated. These two problems weakened the advantage of general aviation, causing the depressed development.Chapter 5 is about comparative legal research. This part introduces the ICAO division standard in the first place, and illuminates its merits. Next two sections focuses on the successful practices and mature regulations in air space management in the United States, Australia, and Germany. This chapter specifies the advantage of different systems by illustration of detailed procedures.Chapter 6 returns to China’s own issue. As the conclusion of previous research, this chapter offers four proposals to help get rid of the shackles on general aviation and promote the optimizing of China’s management system.