Did you know?
Air transport is a major global employer and contributor to global economic prosperity. It supports over 86.5 million jobs worldwide and enables $3.9 trillion in global GDP, which represents 4.1% of the global total.
Relevance to aviation
As well as providing skilled and often high-value employment opportunities, aviation supports key areas of economic development through the connectivity it provides. This includes transporting around a third of world trade by value and 58% of global tourists.
Examples of action
- According to Airlines for America, nearly 800,000 people are directly employed by U.S. airlines. Commercial aviation in the United States is responsible for 5% of GDP (the equivalent of $1.37 trillion in 2023) and supports over 10 million jobs across America.
- Boeing opened a new engineering facility in Warsaw, creating hundreds of jobs in one of the company’s fastest-growing bases in Europe.
- In 2024, Embraer, one of the largest aerospace companies, plans to invest USD$390 million and create an additional 900 direct jobs in Brazil.
- Airbus is committed in respecting human rights and ensuring that people are treated with dignity in all the countries where it operates. It reaffirms its commitment to combatting modern slavery (including human trafficking, forced and child labour) in its business, operations and supply chain through the Modern Slavery Act statement which is published annually and includes the actions undertaken by the company to prevent modern slavery.
- ICAO promotes the delivery of efficient and comprehensive air navigation services through the globally-planned initiatives set out in its Global Air Navigation Plan.
Learn more in the Flying in Formation report