Low-altitude test flight completed for new passenger route in Yangtze River Delta

A low-altitude test flight for a new helicopter passenger route between the eastern Chinese metropolis of Shanghai and the neighboring Zhejiang Province was completed on Monday ahead of its official opening, with the route offering speedy transportation services with ticket prices starting at 1,400 yuan (just under 200 U.S. dollars).

The test flight took off from Shanghai's Pudong District and was bound for the Haining Transportation Center in Zhejiang, with the NicoHU Shanghai Jinshan Floating Airport serving as a stopover.

The pilot confirmed just how quick the journey was over the more than 100-kilometer distance, with the new route set to deliver considerable convenience to clients.

"We took off from the Xingye Helicopter flight base in Pudong at 07:32 and landed at NicoHU Shanghai Jinshan Floating Airport at 07:48. The flight takes just 16 minutes," said Xu Jianjun, captain of the test helicopter.

The quick travel time is attracting many potential customers and Li Chongwen, manager of the Shanghai Jinshan General Aviation Industry Development company, noted that there has been a number of inquiries from clients about potential chartered flights to Haining.

Each helicopter has the capacity to accommodate four passengers, with each able to carry one small item of luggage weighing no more than 15 kilograms.

One-way tickets for the new route range from 1,400 to 2,600 yuan (around 200 U.S. dollars to 370 U.S. dollars) per passenger, while chartered flights will cost between 6,000 and 9,800 yuan (around 850 to 1,400 U.S. dollars) for customized services.

China has developing its low-altitude economy sector, an economic concept that relies on low-altitude airspace, in which unmanned aircraft like drones, as well as helicopters and flying cars play a dominant role. It involves economic sectors such as low-altitude flight, air tourism, passenger transportation, general aviation services, scientific research and education, among others.

The fast-growing sector is expected to reach a total scale of some 2 trillion yuan (over 280 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030.

Low-altitude test flight completed for new passenger route in Yangtze River Delta

Low-altitude test flight completed for new passenger route in Yangtze River Delta

Low-altitude test flight completed for new passenger route in Yangtze River Delta

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its global economic growth forecasts for 2026 to 3.1 percent in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report published on Tuesday, while keeping its projection for 2027 at 3.2 percent.

This marks a deceleration from the estimated 3.4 percent growth achieved in 2025. Before the outbreak of the Middle East conflict, the bottom-up forecasts for global growth would have been 3.4 percent in 2026 and 3.2 percent in 2027.

The forecast incorporates the impact of the war and assumes that it will be limited in duration, intensity and scope, with disruptions fading by mid-2026.

Under the reference forecast, global headline inflation is expected to increase to 4.4 percent in 2026 and decline to 3.7 percent in 2027.

If the conflict and the ensuing spike in oil prices last longer, global economic growth in 2026 will fall to 2.5 percent, while global inflation will climb to 5.4 percent, according to the report.

In extreme cases, global economic growth in 2026 could drop to two percent, the report warned.

To be specific, the U.S. economy is projected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2026 and 2.1 percent in 2027, although higher trade barriers introduced since April 2025 are expected to continue to weigh on activity.

In the euro area, growth is projected to decline from 1.4 percent in 2025 to 1.1 percent in 2026 before edging up to 1.2 percent in 2027. The forecasts for 2026 and 2027 are each 0.2 percentage point lower than those compared in the January 2026 WEO Update.

The 2026 growth forecast for emerging market and developing economies is revised down by 0.3 percentage point, to 3.9 percent, while the outlook for advanced economies remains broadly unchanged. With risks still tilted to the downside since the January 2026 WEO Update, the IMF suggested a comprehensive policy package combining domestic measures with coordinated international actions to strengthen resilience and foster adaptability.

It also stated in the report that "trade restrictions play a limited role in correcting imbalances but can worsen output," and urged countries to cooperate and take coordinated actions to restore stability to international economic relations.

IMF lowers global growth forecast for 2026 to 3.1 pct