Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Organizational and growth trends
in air transport
Ian Humphreys
I
NTRODUCTION
The growth in air transport has been phenomenal since the first powered flight by
the Wright Brothers on 17 December 1903, which did not remain airborne for
longer than the length of a Boeing 747. Today there are over 18,000 commercial air-
craft in service, around 1300 airlines, over 1192 airports open to international avia-
tion and, worldwide, over 3 billion passenger kilometres were flown in 1999
(Endres, 2001; ICAO, 1999, 2000). In addition to the growth in terms of the scale
of air transport, forces of market competition, liberalization and deregulation, priva-
tization and globalization have had, and are having, a profound effect on airports
and their surrounding communities, airlines, consumers, industry, governments and
the physical environment.
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the main organizational and growth
trends in air transport in order to provide the context for considering the sustain-
ability issues covered in the following chapters.
H
ISTORICAL
AND
PROJECTED
GROWTH
IN
AIR
TRANSPORT
Passengers
Global air-passenger traffic is forecast to increase by an average of 4.6 to 4.9 per cent
per annum between 1999 and 2020 (Boeing, 2001a; Airbus, 2000; ICAO, 2000).
This represents an almost trebling of revenue passenger kilometres flown from 3 tril-
lion in 1999 to 8 trillion in 2019.
Seen in the historical context of passenger growth, and the events of 11 September
2001 apparently having only a temporary effect on passenger numbers, these figures
