AIR TRANSPORTATION

- The movement of passengers and freight by any conveyance that can sustain controlled flight.

History of Air Transportation

 1783
- The Montgolfier brothers invented the first ever hot air balloon, first time people had flown.
 1903
- The Wright Brothers flew the first ever plane 120 feet, did not catch on until later though.
 1907
- First helicopter was invented, very unsuccessful.
 1927
- Charles Lindbergh had the first successful flight across the Atlantic Ocean, it took 33 hours.
 1940
- First Modern Helicopter was invented
 APRIL 1958
- For the first time ever, planes had become more popular than boats in terms of travel.
 OCTOBER 1958
- This flight inspired commercial airlines to begin, in a few years most major nations had
commercial airlines.
 2001
- Terrorist Attacks on the WTC, Pentagon, and the White House occurred. These attacks caused an
increased amount of air security, and a dip in air travel for a few years, major event in US history
 2007
- In the face of growing demand and increase in traffic, everyone from airports and airlines, to
manufacturers and air-traffic controllers, are working to limit emissions and increase efficiency.

Three major categories of passenger planes may be recognized, each servicing a specific air transport
market:

 Short range aircraft. Bombardier’s CRJ series and Embraer’s ERJs are examples of planes with
relatively small capacities (30-100 passengers) that travel over relatively short distances (2,000
km). They are usually referred to as regional jets that serve smaller markets and feed hub airports.
They also provide high frequency point to point services between large city pairs.
 Medium range aircraft. The airbus A320 and its Boeing equivalent, the B737, are designed to
service destinations within a continent with a range around 5,000 km for the later generation
models. From New York, most of North America can be serviced. This range can also be applied
to the European continent, South America, East Asia and Africa.
 Long range aircraft. There are a variety of aircraft capable of crossing the oceans and linking
together the continents. Early variants such as the B707 have evolved into planes offering high
capacity, such as the B747 series, which have then evolved into extra long range abilities, such as
the B777 series (14,500 km range) or the A350 series (14,350 km range).
The air freight market is serviced by five types of operations:

 Dedicated cargo operators maintaining a fleet or cargo-only aircrafts and offering regular
scheduled services between the airports they service. They also offer charter operations to cater to
specific needs.
 Combination services where an airline company will maintain a fleet of both specialized and
passenger aircrafts able to carry freight in their belly hold. Most of the cargo operations involve
long haul services.
 Passenger operators that will offer the freight capacity in the belly hold of their aircrafts. For
these operators, freight services are rather secondary and represent a source of additional income.
It still remain an important market as about 50% of all the air cargo is carried in the belly hold of
regular passenger aircrafts.
 Air freight integrators commonly operating hub and spoke freight services that reconcile short
and long haul flights. They offer comprehensive services that are usually door-to-door and can
support the logistics requirements of their customers.
 Specialized operators fulfilling niche services that cater to specific cargo requirements (e.g.
heavy loads) that do not fit the capabilities of standard cargo aircrafts.

The economic and spatial impacts of air transportation can be articulated by:

 Technical improvements. It is through increasingly long-haul nonstop services among an ever

wider set of city-pairs rather than through increased aircraft speeds that air transportation
continues to “shrink the world”. Commercial aircraft are now capable of making trips of up to 18
hours in duration.
 Rising affluence. The second half of the 20th century has associated with rising affluence in
developed countries, a process that has percolated to many developing economies. Both
passenger and cargo traffic have grown rapidly and have outpaced the growth of the broader
global economy. Relatively inexpensive air transport has also been crucial to the growth of
tourism.
 Globalization. Manufacturers, especially those producing high-value electronics, are heavily
reliant upon air transport to tie together spatially disaggregated operations. In addition to the trade
network established by multinational corporations, there are also extensive social networks
established by migrants involving recurring air travel.