CRI听力:Private Jet Market Booms in China

At an aircraft supermarket, China's elite have a wide range to choose from.

Small planes will set them back around 2.5 million U.S. dollars.

With the private jet market booming, both aircraft dealers and buyers are calling for authorities to reconsider current aviation laws, so they can fly higher.

Li Dong has more details.

Private plane ownership is taking off in China. A one-engine ultra light plane costs about 195,000 US dollars.

A prospective customer has come from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, to Beijing to buy this ultra light jet.

He's on a test flight, and his co-pilot is the aircraft supermarket owner, Zhang Changyi.

It is the first "aircraft supermarket" in China, located in the outskirts of Beijing. The supermarket opened just a few weeks ago and has become a new way for the wealthy to indulge themselves.

Buyers from all over the country are coming to this dealership to treat themselves to gifts that go from 120,000 dollars for a glider to 2.5 million dollars for a five-seat helicopter.

Zhang has already sold half the aircraft on offer and is waiting to move to a bigger hangar to process all incoming orders. In just a few weeks, he has sold one aircraft every two days on average.

But Zhang sees his business simply as a common supermarket that caters to the wealthy.

"I think it's like buying a radish or cabbage. It is true. Buying an aircraft is not that different from buying a radish or cabbage."

China's private aviation market is on the brink of a revolution, thanks to wealthy Chinese with a passion for aviation - and business executives who are opting to soar through the skies to avoid Beijing's gridlocked roads.

This is a relatively new phenomenon in China. There were only 150 private aircraft registered in 2011, despite the fact there were more than one million millionaires in the country, according to the last Hurun report.

The sales procedure has already become routine for Zhang. Once a customer's interest is confirmed, he moves the aircraft out of the hangar and onto a rudimentary runway.

But this new trend doesn't come without controversy. Restrictions are still significant on private low-level flights in China – less than 500 meters in altitude -- and airspace continues to be managed by the military.

They all expect to see the authorities ease the ban on low-level flights as the number of private aircraft already flying in Chinese skies continues to rise.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.