The Civil Aviation Administration of China has passed its first traffic law on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). It will start regulating UAV and drone traffic, which was previously unsupervised, Tencent’s tech channel reports.
Ke Yubao, executive secretary of the China Aircraft Owner and Pilot Association, disclosed that the new regulation will be released this month. According to Ke, the regulation prohibits drone delivery in densely-populated cities. In this case, parcel delivery companies who have operated drone delivery will likely be affected.
China’s largest delivery company, S.F. Express, was the first to initiate drone delivery in 2013. Its delivery drone was manufactured by XAIRCRAFT. This aircraft technology company also partnered with Taobao in express deliveries this year. The CEO of Xaircraft Technology Peng Bin told Tencent that UAV application in areas like agriculture and logistics is exploding, and XAIRCRAFT wants to get the first-mover advantage in these growing markets.
