Almost all business aircraft in China, however, are corporate owned but managed by third-party charter companies or affiliated with airlines. “Right now you can’t have a private operation in China due to regulatory issues, so you have to have an AOC [air operations certificate] or be allied with an airline or charter provider,” explained Pat Dunn, an American who is employed as aviation manager for the Genting Group in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “They are welcoming foreign operations under those conditions.”

Despite the infrastructural and policy barriers inhibiting development of business aviation, there is almost unlimited potential to sell business jets in China.

But there are notable differences between the Chinese and Western systems and some weak points operators need to know before heading to the PRC. “First,” Kuehnl pointed out, “they operate in metric. In terms of altimetry, usually everything is QNH at the big places, but they will default to QFE at the more remote locations. It should be standardized, as it would make life easier, since you would know what to expect. In terms of flight planning, they like you to follow airways; there are very few direct routings.