Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military and non-state

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' include fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air aircraft such as h ...

, which can be both private and commercial. Most countries in the world are members of the

International Civil Aviation Organization The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO ) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation, and fosters the planning and development of international sch ...

and work together to establish common Standards and Recommended Practices for civil aviation through that agency. Civil aviation includes three major categories: * Commercial air transport, including scheduled and non-scheduled passenger and cargo flights * Aerial work, in which an aircraft is used for specialized services such as agriculture, photography, surveying, search and rescue, etc. *

General aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

(GA), including all other civil flights, private or commercial Although scheduled air transport is the larger operation in terms of passenger numbers, GA is larger in the number of flights (and flight hours, in the U.S.) In the U.S., GA carries 166 million passengers each year, more than any individual airline, though less than all the airlines combined. Since 2004, the U.S. airlines combined have carried over 600 million passengers each year, and in 2014, they carried a combined 662,819,232 passengers. Some countries also make a regulatory distinction based on whether aircraft are flown for hire, like: * Commercial aviation includes most or all flying done for hire, particularly scheduled service on

airline An airline is a company that provides civil aviation, air transport services for traveling passengers or freight (cargo). Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines ...

s; and *

Private aviation Private aviation is the part of civil aviation that does not include flying for hire, which is termed commercial aviation. In 2022, private air travel was noted as increasing. Definition Private aviation and commercial aviation are not rigoro ...

includes pilots flying for their own purposes (recreation, business meetings, etc.) without receiving any kind of remuneration. All scheduled air transport is commercial, but general aviation can be either commercial or private. Normally, the pilot, aircraft, and operator must all be authorized to perform commercial operations through separate commercial licensing, registration, and operation certificates. Non-civil aviation is referred to as state aviation. This includes

military aviation Military aviation is the design, development and use of military aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling aerial warfare, including national airlift (air cargo) capacity to provide military logistics, logist ...

, state VIP transports, and

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

/customs aircraft.iaopa.org
"What is GA?"
. Retrieved 10 October 2021

History

Postwar aviation

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, commercial aviation grew rapidly, using mostly ex-military pilots to transport people and cargo. Factories that had produced bombers were quickly adapted to the production of passenger aircraft like the Douglas DC-4. This growth was accelerated by the establishment of military airports throughout the world, either for combat use or training. These could easily be turned to civil aviation use. The first commercial jet airliner to fly was the British de Havilland DH.106 Comet. By 1952, the British state airline

British Overseas Airways Corporation British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the United Kingdom, British state-owned national airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II ...

had introduced the Comet into scheduled service. While it was a technical achievement, the airplane suffered a series of highly public failures, as the shape of the windows led to cracks due to metal fatigue. By the time the problems were overcome, other jet airliner designs such as the

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on Decembe ...

had already entered service.

Civil aviation authorities

The Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation was originally established in 1944; it states that signatories should collectively work to harmonize and standardize the use of airspace for safety, efficiency and regularity of air transport. Each signatory country, of which there are at least 193, has a civil aviation authority (such as the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

in the United States) to oversee the following areas of civil aviation: * Personnel licensing — regulating the basic training and issuance of licenses and certificates. * Flight operations — carrying out safety oversight of commercial operators. * Airworthiness — issuing certificates of registration and certificates of airworthiness to civil aircraft, and overseeing the safety of aircraft maintenance organizations. *

Aerodrome An aerodrome, airfield, or airstrip is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for public or private use. Aerodromes inc ...

s — designing and constructing aerodrome facilities. * Air traffic services — managing the traffic inside of a country's airspace.

Statistics

The

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

lists monotonously growing numbers for the number of passengers transported per year worldwide with a preliminary all-time high in 2015 of 3.44 billion passengers. Likewise, the number of registered carrier departures worldwide has reached a peak in 2015 with almost 33 million takeoffs. In the U.S. alone, the passenger miles "computed by summing the products of the aircraft-miles flown on each inter airport segment multiplied by the number of passengers carried on that segment" have reached in 2014 (as compared to

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

car traffic with ). The global seasonally adjusted revenue passenger kilometers ''per month'' peaked at more than (~ 6.6 trillion per year, corresponding to roughly 2000 km per passenger) in January 2016, a 7% rise over one year. The passenger numbers are distinctively more volatile than general economic indicators. Global political, economic or health crises have an amplifying effect.

References

External links