January 19, 2018//- The International Civil Aviation Organisation ( ICAO) has released the 2017 Preliminary Report of the global civil aviation activities as “a new record of 4.1 billion passengers were carried by the aviation industry on scheduled services in 2017”.
ICAO said the figure represented a 7.1 per cent increase over 2016.
The number of departures rose to approximately 37 million globally, and world passenger traffic, expressed in terms of total scheduled revenue passenger-kilometres (RPKs), posted an increase of 7.6 per cent with approximately 7.7 trillion RPKs performed. This growth is a slight improvement from the 7.4 per cent achieved in 2016.
Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, ICAO Council President in his remarks, attributed the upward performance of the civil air transportation to some factors.
He said: “The sustainability of the tremendous growth in international civil air traffic is demonstrated by the continuous improvements to its safety, security, efficiency and environmental footprint.
“This sustainability is the result of concerted efforts and cooperation at the national, regional, and global levels, particularly in terms of ICAO compliancy, which is key to accessing the global network.”
Also, Dr. Fang Liu, Secretary General of ICAO said that air traffic growth was making key contributions towards the achievement of United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals by offering an opportunity to lift a generation out of poverty, figuratively and literally.
He explained that as a UN agency, ICAO was deeply committed to ensuring that all countries had an opportunity to benefit from the doubling in flight and passenger volumes forecast for the next 15 years.
This is illustrated by the fact that over half of the world’s 1.2 billion tourists who travelled across international borders last year were transported by air, and that air transport now carries some 35 per cent of world trade by value.
Indeed, more than 90 per cent of cross border Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce was carried by air transport.
ICAO also explained in the preliminary report some key components that played major roles in the 2017 performance. Independent.ng
