{"id":12684,"date":"2019-05-06T00:45:55","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T00:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/?p=12684"},"modified":"2019-05-06T00:46:54","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T00:46:54","slug":"faa-releases-aerospace-forecast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/national-news\/faa-releases-aerospace-forecast\/%20","title":{"rendered":"FAA Releases Aerospace Forecast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All safety, efficiency and economic indicators show that air travel in the United States is strong, according to the FAA Aerospace Forecast Fiscal Years (FY) 2019-2039 (PDF)<\/a>. With aircraft operations expected to increase more than 25 percent over the next 20 years, the FAA is advancing major airspace modernization and infrastructure improvements to meet this tremendous projected growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FAA forecasts U.S. airline enplanements (passengers)\nwill increase from 743.9 million in 2017 to 780.8 million in 2018, a 5.0\npercent increase. Enplanements for domestic mainline carriers, which primarily\nuse aircraft with 90 or more seats, increased 5.4 percent while domestic\nenplanements for regional carriers, which primarily use aircraft with 89 or\nless seats, increased 3.4 percent. International enplanements are expected to\nincrease from 9.6 million in 2017 to 99.6 million in 2018, a 2.8 percent\nincrease. Mainline carrier international enplanements were up 2.9 percent while\nregional international enplanements decreased 1.8 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revenue passenger miles (RPMs) are the industry standard for\nmeasuring air travel demand. An RPM represents one revenue passenger traveling\none mile. Domestic RPMs increased from 683.6 billion in 2017 to 720.2 billion\nin 2018, a 5.4 percent increase. Domestic mainline carrier RPMs increased 5.5\npercent while domestic regional carrier RPMs increased 4.4 percent.\nInternational RPMs by U.S. carriers increased from 271.3 billion in 2017 to\n280.6 billion in 2018, a 3.4 percent increase. Total system RPMs increased from\n954.8 billion in 2017 to 1.00 trillion in 2018, a 4.8 percent increase. Total\nmainline carrier RPMs increased by 4.9 percent, while total regional carrier\nRPMs increased by 4.0 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Underscoring this point, the FAA forecasts total operations\n(landings and take-offs) at air traffic control towers to increase from 51.8\nmillion in 2018, at an average annual rate of 0.9 percent during the forecast\nperiod, reaching 62.0 million 2039.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Transportation (DOT) and the FAA are\nplanning to meet this growth in air travel with robust infrastructure\ninvestments through the Airport Improvement Program. Satellite-based, air\ntraffic modernization technologies and procedures being deployed by the FAA are\nenhancing safety while improving efficiency in the nation\u2019s airspace system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The forecast also highlights the phenomenal growth of\nUnmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), often referred to as drones. The FAA projects\nthe small model UAS fleet to grow from 1.2 million vehicles in 2018 to 1.4 million\nin 2023, an average annual growth rate of 2.2 percent. The commercial, small\nnon-model UAS fleet is forecast to nearly triple from 277,386 in 2018 to\n835,211 in 2023, an average annual growth rate of 24.7 percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to UAS, another rapidly growing aerospace field\nis commercial space transportation. The FAA, which licenses and regulation this\nindustry, projects that commercial space launch and re-entry operations will\nincrease from 35 in 2018 to an estimated 56 in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FAA aerospace forecast is the industry-wide standard of\nmeasurement of U.S. aviation-related activities. The agency uses data, trends\nand other factors to develop the forecast, including generally accepted\neconomic projections, surveys and information sent by the airlines to the DOT.\nAdditionally, the scope of the report looks at all facets of aviation including\ncommercial air travel, air cargo and private general aviation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All safety, efficiency and economic indicators show that air travel in the United States is strong, according to the FAA Aerospace Forecast Fiscal Years (FY) 2019-2039 (PDF). With aircraft operations expected to increase more than 25 percent over the next 20 years, the FAA is advancing major airspace modernization and infrastructure improvements to meet this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12685,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/unnamed-17.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12684"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12687,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12684\/revisions\/12687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}