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'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

, both private and commercial. Most of the 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 a ...

and work together to establish common

Standards and Recommended Practices Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

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 with the exception of commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services ...

(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 Commercial aviation is the part of civil aviation that involves operating aircraft for remuneration or hire, as opposed to private aviation. Definition Commercial aviation is not a rigorously defined category. All commercial air transport and ae ...

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 and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or Airline alliance, alliances with other airlines for ...

s; and *

Private aviation Private aviation is the part of civil aviation that does not include flying for hire, as opposed to commercial aviation. Definition Private aviation and commercial aviation are not rigorously defined. In general, private aviation is regarded a ...

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, state VIP transports, and

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

/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, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, commercial aviation grew rapidly, using mostly ex-military pilots to transport people and cargo. Factories that had produced

bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircra ...

were quickly adapted to the production of passenger aircraft like the

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1 ...

. 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 British state-owned airline created in 1939 by the merger of Imperial Airways and British Airways Ltd. It continued operating overseas services throughout World War II. After the passi ...

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 In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts o ...

. By the time the problems were overcome, other jet airliner designs such as the Boeing 707 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 the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

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 In aviation, airworthiness is the measure of an aircraft's suitability for safe flight. Initial airworthiness is demonstrated by a certificate of airworthiness issued by the civil aviation authority in the state in which the aircraft is register ...

— issuing certificates of registration and certificates of airworthiness to civil aircraft, and overseeing the safety of

aircraft maintenance Aircraft maintenance is the performance of tasks required to ensure the continuing airworthiness of an aircraft or aircraft part, including overhaul, inspection, replacement, defect rectification, and the embodiment of modifications, compliance ...

organizations. *

Aerodrome An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) 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 publ ...

s — designing and constructing aerodrome facilities. *

Air traffic service In aviation, an air traffic service (ATS) is a service which regulates and assists aircraft in real-time to ensure their safe operations. In particular, ATS is to: * prevent collisions between aircraft; provide advice of the safe and efficient cond ...

s — 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 grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

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 is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...

car traffic A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

with ). The global seasonally adjusted

revenue passenger kilometer A passenger (also abbreviated as pax) is a person who travels in a vehicle, but does not bear any responsibility for the tasks required for that vehicle to arrive at its destination or otherwise operate the vehicle, and is not a steward. The ...

s ''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