From the DC-3 to Hypersonic Flight: The Changing Environment

Abstract

As civil aviation is poised to enter the twenty-first century, it will choke on its own success unless it can develop innovative approaches to increasingly complex problems that evolve more quickly than the body politic can absorb. These problems concern technological developments, consumer demands, constraints on the infrastructure, and deregulation policies that have buffeted the industry. The challenges are not new and apply to other industries as well in the global market, but they affect airlines on an unprecedented scale. These challenges are forcing both the international airlines and their governments to rethink such fundamental issues as their role in controlling a traditionally well-protected industry. The effects of these developments on the international system are still far from clear, but they are felt by all those who have a part in managing the system: governments, airlines, and their international counterparts, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

The progress of technology is not a natural process, like the growth of a tree. It is not automatic. Air transport makes technical progress only because man or a group of men does something.

Edward Warner, Technical Development and its Effect on Air Transportation (1938)