Page 26 - Planning and Design of Airports

The Natur e of Civil Aviation and Airports 7

Passenger Air Carriers
Commercial air carriers are defined in the United States as those that
operate under Title 14 Part 121 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regula-
tions to provide scheduled air transportation to the public. In the
United States, these airlines are categorized by their annual revenues.
Major airlines are those that generate at least $1 billion in annual rev-
enues. National carriers generate between $100 million and $1 billion
in annual revenues, and regional carriers generate between $25 million
and $100 million in annual revenues.
International air carriers receive operating certificates as pre-
scribed by standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organi-
zation (ICAO) and defined by the country in which the airline is
based. Historically, international air carriers were owned and oper-
ated by their nations, hence the term “flag” carriers. In recent years,
most of the traditional international carriers have been transferred to
private ownership. In addition, there has been an emergence of new
international air carriers, most following the LCC model of serving
point-to-point markets for fares that are on the whole far lower than
their historical airline counterparts. The emergence of the LCC models
in Europe and more recently in the Far East and India are resulting
in a tremendous growth in aviation activity in these regions.
Air carriers using aircraft with less than 75 seats providing sched-
uled or unscheduled air charter services operating under Title 14
Part 121 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations are known as regional
air carriers. Those carriers operating aircraft with less than 30 seats
and those that operate under Title 14 Part 135 of the U.S. Code of
Federal Regulations are known as commuter air carriers. If service
frequency between city pairs is provided less than 5 times weekly,
these carriers are known as air taxi operators.
In 2008, there were over 700 air taxis, commuter and small regional
air carriers operating more than 2750 aircraft, over 50 percent of
which were regional jet aircraft. Six hundred and forty two airports in
the United States received service by small regional and commuter
airlines. Regional and commuter air service is the sole provider of
public air transportation to 492 airports in the United States (source:
RAA). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, commuter airline growth
was encouraged by their increasing roles as code-share partners with
major air carriers. In 2006, over 95 percent of all passengers traveling
on commuter and regional air carriers purchased their tickets through
these code-share partnerships. Table 1-3 illustrates the growth of the
commuter and regional carriers since 1970.

International Air Transportation
Although international air transport was inaugurated in the mid-
1930s, rapid growth did not begin until 1950. Since that time the
average annual growth rate in the number of worldwide passengers