Categories
China Consumer Behavior Economics

China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: first helicopter club to take off

Membership for what is being touted as the country’s first private helicopter club will open soon. The club is affiliated to a private heliport opened in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, under the Ruohang Transportation Development Co. “Our membership plan will be formally made known to the public this weekend and its initial terms for receiving application will be mainly targeted at those interested in flying or wanting to buy helicopters,” Lu Yong, the executive director of Ruohang, told China Daily recently.

Membership for what is being touted as the country’s first private helicopter club will open soon. The club is affiliated to a private heliport opened in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, under the Ruohang Transportation Development Co. “Our membership plan will be formally made known to the public this weekend and its initial terms for receiving application will be mainly targeted at those interested in flying or wanting to buy helicopters,” Lu Yong, the executive director of Ruohang, told China Daily recently.

Lu said the club received hundreds of calls from people asking about the price of buying or renting a helicopter since the heliport was launched. “We’ll tailor a specific membership mechanism according to the application results and market demand,” Lu said, adding only 10 percent of the total number of applicants would be given a membership initially.

The new helicopter base, worth 160 million yuan ($23.4 million), is the size of about 15 football fields, having facilities such as landing sites, helicopter maintenance, flight training, operating business flights, hosting wedding ceremonies in the air, medical rescue, aerial photography and firefighting.

The company’s only helicopter can accommodate six to eight people, which will increase to nine by the end of this year, Lu said. The hourly rental for a helicopter is about 30,000 yuan. The China’s general aviation industry, or flights other than military and scheduled airline flights, holds huge potential, Lu said.

So far, there are only 132 civilian helicopters in China, while the United States has more than 10,000 helicopters and Brazil nearly 500, according to statistics from China Aviation Industry Corp, a major Chinese aviation manufacturer.

According to official figures, China will require 1,830 general aviation helicopters by 2013.

Liu Zheng, a senior consultant, said: “The development of the helicopter industry for the general aviation sector will speed up national economic growth and create more jobs, besides providing domestic and foreign plane makers with huge business opportunities.”

Ruohang planned to construct more heliports in China’s developed cities such as Suzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou, creating an air transportation network connecting Yangtze River Delta to other parts of the country.

According to the company, the 120-million-yuan Suzhou heliport will be ready later this year, and functional by 2010.

By Itamar Medeiros

Originally from Brazil, Itamar Medeiros currently lives in Germany, where he works as VP of Design Strategy at SAP, where he leads the design vision for the entire Human Capital Management product line, ensuring cohesive product narratives and establishing best practices.

Working in the Information Technology industry since 1998, Itamar has helped truly global companies in multiple continents create great user experience through advocating Design and Innovation principles. Itamar has also served as a juror for prestigious design competitions and lectured on design topics at universities worldwide.

During his 7 years in China, he promoted the User Experience Design discipline as User Experience Manager at Autodesk and Local Coordinator of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) in Shanghai.

Itamar holds a MA in Design Practice from Northumbria University (Newcastle, UK), for which he received a Distinction Award for his thesis Creating Innovative Design Software Solutions within Collaborative/Distributed Design Environments.

One reply on “China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: first helicopter club to take off”

[…] { design@tive } information design put an intriguing blog post on China, Socialism & Consumer Behavior: first helicopter club to take offHere’s a quick excerptMembership for what is being touted as the country’s first private helicopter club will open soon. The club is affiliated to a private heliport opened in Nanjing , capital of Jiangsu province , under the Ruohang Transportation Development Co . “Our membership plan will be formally made known to the public this weekend and its initial terms for receiving application will be mainly targeted at those interested in flying or wanting to buy helicopters,” Lu Yong, the executive director of Ruohan […]

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.