Civil Aviation

Airline pilots rank among the highest-paid professionals in the world. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers reached $226,600 in May 2024. The aviation industry is navigating a structural pilot shortage that is pushing wages higher across the board. Industry estimates project…

Airlines have long used the FIFA World Cup to decorate their aircraft with national colours and football imagery. The practice has grown in scale and sophistication with each tournament, culminating in Qatar Airways (QR) branding 120 aircraft for the 2022 edition and, most recently, American Airlines (AA) deploying more than 1,460 World Cup-decalled jets for…

The global aerospace materials market is undergoing a fundamental shift. According to BCC Research, the advanced aerospace materials market is expected to grow from $29.2 billion in 2024 to $42.9 billion by 2029. Engineers, manufacturers, and researchers across the United States, Europe, and Asia are racing to identify which metals and alloys will power the…

China is the world’s second-largest civil aviation market and one of the fastest-growing. Its airports handled 770 million passengers in 2025, a 5.5% rise year-on-year, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC). The country operates a fleet of more than 4,000 commercial aircraft, 270 certified transport airports, and a set of domestic manufacturers…

Donald Trump owns one of the most recognizable private jets in the world. His aircraft is a Boeing 757-200, registered under the tail number N757AF and informally called “Trump Force One.” The jet was purchased in 2011 from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen for a reported total cost of $100 million, including a sweeping interior renovation…

China’s state-owned aircraft manufacturer, the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), launched the C919 programme in 2008 with one clear goal: to build a Chinese-made narrowbody jet that could challenge the Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 on domestic and international routes. The aircraft made its first commercial flight on 28 May 2023 with China Eastern…

Tribhuvan International Airport (KTM), Kathmandu, serves as Nepal’s sole international aviation gateway. As of May 2026, 32 airlines operate scheduled flights to and from Kathmandu, connecting the Himalayan nation to 45 destinations across 16 countries, FlightsFrom reported. The airport, operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN), handled nearly 9 million passengers in 2023…

The global rollout of fifth generation (5G) cellular networks has placed the aviation industry in a direct collision course with telecommunications regulators over a strip of radio frequency spectrum that sits immediately adjacent to the band used by aircraft radio altimeters. According to a report published in AeroTime, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed, as…

Several major airlines omit row 13 from their aircraft seating charts entirely, with seat numbering jumping directly from row 12 to row 14. The practice is a direct commercial response to triskaidekaphobia, the clinical term for the fear of the number 13, which first appeared in an American psychology journal in 1911 and continues to…