The challenges of aviation growth: get better at self promotion

Aviation is a growth industry, with all leading forecasters expecting this to remain the case into the longer term future. As in the past, there are likely to be occasional, short term interruptions to traffic growth. However, IATA forecasts a doubling of passenger numbers between 2017 and 2037, with considerable social and economic benefits arising from this growth. Nevertheless, there are a number of challenges both constraining, and resulting from, growth in the aviation industry.

The European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) held its annual Forum on 4-Dec-2018, a meeting of directors general of civil aviation of European countries, together with representatives of the European Commission, EUROCONTROL and EASA. The ECAC Forum's theme this year was sustaining aviation growth. CAPA contributed to the discussion with a presentation on "The challenges of growth: what solutions for the future?".

The challenges can be grouped into four broad categories: (1) infrastructure, (2) environment, (3) protectionism and (4) additional government-imposed burdens. The CAPA presentation summarised the different challenges under these four categories and areas of consideration for solutions. Underpinning virtually all the solutions is the need for aviation to become much better at promoting its benefits to the public.