DECO 27A38 - Air transport industry : from fast-growing to climate change concerns

Over the last 50 years, between 1974 and 2024, the number of air passengers has risen from 0.6 to 4.5 billion a year. Despite some dangerous setbacks (oil and economic crises), these figures can be explained by the winds of growth in world economic exchanges and the effects of national and international deregulation.

The air transport sector has undergone a massive transformation in all dimensions: increased competition between its players, diversified customer offerings (from a 'commodity' to a Luxury Experience) and radically altered organisational strategies for companies and employees.

This sector has become an increasingly safe mass industry, benefiting for many years from an image that embodies the dream, only to become more recently, in many countries at least, a sector that has come under a great deal of criticism for its environmental responsibilities due to its impact on greenhouse gases.

However, technological solutions have already been identified to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which will enable us to comply with regulations and international environmental commitments (which will be increasingly stringent). However, these solutions will still take a long time to be implemented in a significant way and to bear fruit.