Abstract
The air transport industry uses air craft to transport people, cargo, and mail. Civil aviation includes two major categories; first one is the scheduled air transport, which includes passenger and cargo flights operating on regularly-scheduled routes; and general aviation, including all other civil flights, private and commercial.
The air transport industry supports a wide range of businesses. These include independent maintenance and repair shops, food restaurants, fuelling services travel and the tourism industry.
Before 11th of September 2001 the industry was profitable, since then it has incurred massive losses exceeding US $40 billion. The biggest annual loss was US $13 billion in 2001. Efficiency increases have seen a bottom line. Since 2007, it has been having positive profit. This is due to the fact that the international traffic has increased by 37% since 2001 (this is still 5% below the prediction made before 11th of September). But this growth leads to environmental consequences. Hopefully, we see that although airline capacity has growth by 19% in the past five years, consumption of jet fuel has risen by just 10%. And the air transport's contribution to climate change is small: 2% of global C02 emissions but supports nearly 8% of global GDP. But this number, even if apparently small should not be satisfied by it and still try to reduce it. IATA (International Air Transport Association) promised 25% reduction in fuel consumption in 2005, for 2020. We will see if they are going to meet this goal.
