The Beijing News:

We noticed that smart civil aviation was designated as a main theme of the industry according to plans on civil aviation development in the 14th Five-Year Plan issued earlier this year. What was the thinking behind this? What are the targets and focuses for the future development of smart civil aviation? And, in which aspects will the Civil Aviation Administration of China further promote its smart development? Thank you.

Dong Zhiyi:

That's a very good question. As we know, the new round of the IT-led and smart-based sci-tech revolution and industrial reforms are in full swing, especially in the application of a variety of new technologies, which are completely reshaping the form, model and pattern of the civil aviation industry. For us, we should earnestly uphold the principle of "giving top priority to the people" and "having the people's aviation serve the people." Specifically, we should conform to the historic trend to explore a wise development path in areas from aircraft manufacturing to flight operation, from air traffic to ground security, and from organizational management to providing service and products.

Therefore, based on the research and judgment of the situation and tasks in the coming five years, we made building smart civil aviation a main theme of the industry during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, with the aim of establishing an intelligent system that can "thoroughly perceive, widely interconnect, wisely coordinate and openly share." We will transform its development model, and make the foundation more secure, operation more efficient, transportation service more convenient, and governance system much improved. In particular, this January we issued a roadmap for building a smart civil aviation industry, further proposing smart air transportation and the coordinated aviation industry as our main tasks. Specifically, smart air transportation focuses on "smart travel, smart air traffic control, smart airports and smart supervision," which aims to make security checks more efficient, customs clearance faster, transfers smoother, "filling vacant seats," as well as creating a convenient and comfortable passenger service system and an efficient air logistics service system. It will improve the operation capacity and service level of air traffic featuring a comprehensive, refined and intelligent function, promote coordinated airport operation, people-centered services, intelligent operation, and digital construction and maintenance so as to build an integrated and innovative digital government and supervision platform. Meanwhile, industry coordinated development refers to incorporating 5G, BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, big data, artificial intelligence and other digital industry applications to civil aviation through building a "civil aviation + digital industry" community, "civil aviation + advanced manufacturing" industrial chains, as well as a "civil aviation + green low-carbon" ecosystem to link the whole industry chain of advanced equipment manufacturing, maintenance and operation. We will also use green technologies, sustainable fuels and new energy equipment to realize the deep integration among industries and sectors and pursue the industry's high-quality development.

At present, the building of smart civil aviation has achieved initial success in its mechanism guarantee, top-level design, standard formulation, demonstration and application. For example, 234 airports across the country have provided passengers with paperless travel, and 40 airports with annual passenger numbers exceeding 10 million have brought in "easy security check-in" services, increasing the efficiency of check-in by 30%. In addition, the luggage tracing system has upgraded its network via radio frequency identification. Through these smart functions, the efficiency of civil aviation has been greatly enhanced and its services have been significantly improved. Next, we will continue to push forward the smart development of civil aviation from the following four aspects according to public concerns:

First, we will implement civil aviation's roadmap for smart development and turn specific scenario applications into projects and engineering approaches.

Second, we must pay close attention to and exceed with basic research on key points, tackle the problems hindering development, promote the deep reform of civil aviation, and form a good policy environment to secure the construction of smart civil aviation.

Third, we must improve the management and control of data resources, improve the standards and specifications of data-based governance, smooth the interaction path of data, deepen data analysis capabilities, and effectively unleash the value of data.

Fourth, we must strengthen talent support. We must cultivate versatile personnel suitable for developing smart civil aviation, and cultivate backbone employees, experts and scholars with innovative abilities, so as to build a professional team with strong professional skills and high professional quality. Thank you.