Rights configuration in China's governance of low-altitude airspace for drone operations: A bundle-of-rights analysis

Against the backdrop of the rapid expansion of low-altitude drone operations and emerging urban air mobility, this study examines the configuration of rights in China's governance of low-altitude airspace for drone operations, with particular attention to whether the existing legal framework provides stable, clearly defined, and effectively implementable institutional arrangements for the use of low-altitude airspace resources. Drawing on the bundle-of-rights theory, the study conceptualizes low-altitude airspace as an emerging spatial resource and disaggregates the relevant institutional arrangements into rights of access, use, management, exclusion, and alienation. Taking the Civil Aviation Law of the People's Republic of China and the Interim Regulations on the Administration of Unmanned Aircraft Flights as the core legal sources, the study further develops a Rights Security Level (RSL) framework to assess the rights security of the five rights arrangements across three dimensions: legal establishment, boundary definition, and institutional implementation. The findings show that, although Chinese law provides relatively strong protection for management and exclusion rights, access and use rights remain largely dependent on administrative authorization, while alienation rights have yet to receive explicit institutional recognition. The study reveals an administratively dominated rights structure in China's low-altitude airspace governance. Although this structure contributes to aviation safety, public safety, and national security, it also indicates that market actors have not yet acquired correspondingly stable expectations regarding resource use. The study argues that future institutional reform should preserve necessary administrative oversight while promoting the limited stabilization of access and use rights by further clarifying their boundaries, duration, responsibilities, and regulatory conditions, thereby improving the stability and predictability of low-altitude airspace resource utilization.