In recent years, the low-altitude economy in the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle has achieved remarkable results and has become the core engine for the development of the low-altitude economy in western China. Based on five dimensions including the development environment, capital investment, innovation index, basic carriers, and industrial achievements, the low-altitude economy development index of the top ten GDP cities in China in 2024 was calculated. The results show that Shenzhen leads the nation in the development of the low-altitude economy. The development level of the low-altitude economy in Chengdu is higher than that of other cities except for Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, while Chongqing only leads Nanjing. There is still a significant gap in the development of the low-altitude economy between the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle and the developed eastern regions. Moreover, the development within the “twin cities” of the circle is also unbalanced. Additionally, the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle faces challenges such as limited utilization and approval of airspace resources, prominent cost constraints and technical bottlenecks, insufficient development and sustainability of application scenarios, as well as the co-existence of talent shortage and safety risks. Sichuan and Chongqing should collaborate to promote the high-quality development of the low-altitude economy. They should establish cross-provincial and cross-departmental coordination agencies and information-sharing platforms to efficiently allocate and utilize low-altitude airspace resources, promote innovation in policies and technologies related to the low-altitude economy, accelerate the construction of low-altitude economy infrastructure, expand diversified application scenarios for the low-altitude economy, improve the low-altitude safety prevention and control system, and increase financial support as well as the efforts in talent cultivation and introduction. This will provide a “twin-city model” for the high-quality development of the low-altitude economy.