Air transport is now a big industry. Its origins can be traced back so far as 1919 just after the First World War, but it was not until peace was restored after the Second World War that the era of major expansion really began. Half a century on and the industry now caters for around 1.5 billion passengers a year, generating some $300 billion in revenue and employing about 1.7 million people. It is the key element in the world s largest industry , travel and tourism, which accounts for approximately 10 per cent of world GDP, takes almost 11 per cent of consumer spending, and employs roughly one in every nine people in the global labour force. Over the last 50 years the airline industry has consistently grown at a very fast rate, well above the growth in world GDP. Only once in that time has world air traffic fallen, in 1991, when the economic recession, the Gulf War and threats of international terrorism directed at commercial aviation all combined to cause a 3 per cent drop. This was a relatively small fall in relation to the overall level of traffic, but it was sufficient to set off considerable alarm throughout the industry. But once the Gulf War ended there was a quick recovery in traffic which once again is growing strongly and is forecast to increase by between 5 and 7 per cent per annum over the next five to ten years.

The industry may have achieved high rates of...