Today booking your flight online is almost too much of a convenience. You simply open up your travel app and find your fare alongside others that could be similar and at a reasonable price. You can select your seat, make your payment in just a few clicks, and have your airline ticket appear in your email inbox in minutes. It does not matter if you’re flying London to Tokyo, New York to Paris, or Jakarta to Sydney, each airline ticket is very similar in its appearance. The airport codes make sense, the flight number has a pattern, your baggage tags work at any airport, and when you are flying on multiple airlines, you will have a connecting flight without giving it a thought.
The convenience of air travel is not by accident but rather due to the invisible system that underpins and supports the global commercial aviation industry. This system will not be familiar to the average traveller, yet every global air travellor relies on this system for every journey they fly.
Interestingly, this global system has existed since long before there was an internet.
After the conclusion of the Second World War, commercial aviation progressed into an entirely new age of travel. Planes got bigger, international air travel continued to become more popular, and airlines began to face challenges they had never experienced before. No longer were they only providing air service to the military or to wealthy explorers but rather, air service was available as part of the day to day lives of people living in metropolitan areas.
The visible challenge for the airlines was the fact that each airline had their own methods of operating their airline.
If you were to fly between nations with two to three different airline carriers. Which airline would have your ticket payment liability? If you were in transit and your luggage was lost, which airline would be responsible? How would airports recognize their own airport when there were multiple airports with the same name? If there were no global system of air travel, it would not be long before air travel became extremely confusing—both for passengers and airlines.
Instead of having each airline develop their own systems, the leaders in the industry banded together to create one universal aviation standard.
This decision resulted in the formation of the International Air Transport Association, or IATA, in 1945.
Although you may hear IATA’s name much less frequently then you might imagine, you see its impact everywhere.
Those familiar three-letter airport codes on your boarding pass? Part of the IATA standard.
The baggage tag on your suitcase? Part of the IATA standard.
Your airline ticket, your airport processes, all abbreviations for airlines and many safety standards all exist because of agreement among airlines throughout the world to utilize the same playbook.
Without these common standards, booking flights to different countries would have involved many more complexities than it does now.
Connecting flights are, once again, an excellent example of how this system has made air travel much simpler than it otherwise would be.
To reach your final destination, you may start with one carrier, transfer to a second carrier when you are halfway to your final destination, and complete your trip with a third carrier. The process of moving between carriers appears to be seamless to you. Your reservation will be recognized at every point along the way, your bags will usually follow you automatically, and airport personnel will already know your itinerary.
Airlines can offer that seamless coordination because they have developed a common operational language.
What’s most fascinating about all this is just how long it has been since aviation planners were thinking ahead.
In 1945, no one could have predicted online booking systems, smartphone boarding passes, or aircraft capable of flying across oceans with 400 or more passengers on board. However, the standards established at that time were flexible enough to accommodate changing technology and therefore did not become obsolete.
Much of what we experience today as travelers is based on decisions made many decades ago.
Aviation today is also much larger than most people realize.
Thousands of different airlines operate approximately 100,000 flights around the world on a daily basis. Millions of people travel between countries in just 24 hours, and hundreds of thousands of people are continually airborne.
The amount of coordination required to manage air traffic at that scale is astounding.
In summary, aviation involves much more than simply aircraft departing and arriving.
Airlines operate a multitude of systems to support all aspects of the travel process, including scheduling, baggage handling, airport operations, accessibility, ticketing, pricing, and international regulations, etc. Over all these different elements come together to create a travel experience which appears seamless from a passenger’s point of view.
Accessibility continues to be an increasing focus area.
As global standards continue to evolve, airports and airlines have become better equipped to meet the needs of travellers with disabilities by providing predictable expectations for travellers with disabilities across the various countries they operate within. Although airports and airlines continue to make further improvements, having guidelines which span all countries has made a tremendous difference to many travellers’ overall experiences.
Most frequent flyers will probably agree that they don’t know how once again (too many to be specific) travelers can exist by not knowing about transportation methods, but they can exist and still travel.
There are many areas we may not be aware of until we fly international, such as pets’ travel internationally or our response to global health threats or even the effects of aircraft pollution, etc. – are just some examples of the many things in the airline industry that require coordination.
Although these efforts are typically not reported on and tend to be helpful to the passenger on a daily basis, it seems the greatest achievement is not any one policy or process.
Another great achievement is all of us do not have to worry about the operations of the airport anymore.
All of the passangers, therefore, will have to check in with the boarding passes, go through security and baggage, get on their planes and expect their flight to go off as scheduled. That ability to do all of these things is a testament to how well the international aviation standard working has been going for many years now.
The airport system, therefore, is currently operating successfully when all of us can arrive at an airport and connect to each other without any real issues despite what language we use, where we come from, or the local culture of that country.
You’ll probably see more than your flight and seat numbers the next time you look at your boarding pass.
The boarding pass you hold in your hand, or view on a digital device, is the result of years of co-operation between countries, months of planning by regions, and a great deal of consensus-building among airlines and other key industry participants to create a well-organised transportation network resulting in an effective and efficient industry around the world.
Unfortunately, very few of us actually pay any attention to the system. Interestingly enough, that lack of attention is the main reason for its success.
