On the morning of July 2, the launch ceremony of Chongqing Youyuntong (an initiative that coordinates postal, express and passenger transport to facilitate rural logistics and last mile delivery) and 2024 inaugural flight of China Postal Airlines’ special aircraft for EMS fresh delivery service were held at Wushan Airport. Zheng Xiangdong, vice-mayor of Chongqing municipality, Liu Jun, deputy director-general of the State Post Bureau, Wen Shaoqi, vice president of China Post Group Corporation Limited, attended and witnessed the launch ceremony. The Chongqing Municipal Commission of Transport announced the list of 17 pilot counties (districts) for the “Youyuntong” initiative.

At 23:10, China Postal Airlines flight CF9131 loaded with 10,710 kilograms of Wushan crisp plums departed from Wushan Airport and landed at Nanjing Lukou International Airport 75 minutes later. This marked the launch of the 2024 dedicated air route for Wushan crisp plums. The inaugural flight of China Postal Airlines’ special aircraft for EMS fresh delivery indicates the official start of Chongqing’s Youyuntong initiative to support rural revitalization. With this initiative, consumers thousands of miles away can place an order today and get plums tomorrow.

Wushan crisp plums are one of the three unique local fruit industries in Chongqing. As of 2023, the planting area of crisp plums in Wushan county had exceeded 300,000 mu (approximately 20,000 hectares), generating an annual output of more than 7 billion yuan (about 962.2 million US dollars). In order to facilitate Wushan crisp plums and other unique local produce to sell well across the country and even to the world, China Post Group approved the launch of the 2024 Youyuntong Wushan-Nanjing flight for the EMS fresh delivery of plums on June 4. From July 2 to July 20, the Youyuntong EMS fresh delivery service plans to operate 15 flights, dispatching 225 tonnes of plums. After arriving in Nanjing by air, the plums will be distributed by Nanjing Distribution Center and transported to other parts of the country within 24 hours, enabling next-day delivery to over 1000 cities across China.

This year, Chongqing Postal Branch has explored a new model involving immediate response plus drone transfer plus EMS fresh delivery flight in Wushan, thus breaking through the limitations of time and space, creating new scenarios for the application of drones, and building a delivery and logistics system featuring drone-plane combined transport for the first time. In this case, Wushan crisp plums are airlifted by cargo drones from Quchi township in Wushan county to Wushan Airport directly, shortening the transfer time from 90 minutes to 8 minutes, which significantly increases the efficiency of transit. Then, the plums are transported to Nanjing, Jiangsu, via the EMS fresh delivery flight. Moreover, this is the first time that Wushan crisp plums have been transported to the whole country by such a drone-plane combined transport.