Demographic Trends: Fundamental Air Traffic Demand Driver — October 2024

Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the World’s human population has been growing at the highest annual average rate in its history.

This is understandable. From the onset of the industrial revolution in the late 18th Century there has been increasing urbanisation, education, and advances in health care with resulting reductions in infant mortality and increases in life expectancy. As each country has industrialised, it has reaped a “demographic dividend”: more children survive infancy, the size of the working population has grown, generating the ability to increase total earnings (or GDP per head) for the benefit of a country’s society as a whole.