Civil aviation

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Civil aviation traffic in 2003

Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying, representing all non-military aviation, both private and commercial. Most of the countries in the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and work together to establish common standards and recommended practices for civil aviation through that agency.

Civil aviation includes two major categories:

Scheduled air transport, including all passenger and cargo flights operating on regularly-scheduled routes; and
General aviation (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.[1]) In the U.S., GA carries 166 million passengers each year,[2] more than any individual airline, though less than all the airlines combined.

Most countries also make a regulatory distinction based on whether aircraft are flown for hire:

Commercial aviation includes most or all flying done for hire, from sightseeing in a small plane to charter flights to a hunting lodge to scheduled service on airlines; and
Private aviation 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.

[edit] Civil aviation authorities

The Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention) 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.[3] All the States signatory to the Chicago Convention, now 188, are obliged to implement the Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) of the Convention.

Each signatory country has a Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) (such as the FAA 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 maintenance organizations.