Aviation Market Size Nears $1 Trillion as Backlogs Stretch into the 2030s
Airline revenues are approaching the trillion-dollar mark while aircraft order books remain full well into the next decade. Capacity, fleet renewal, and sustainability spending are redefining how investors measure the aviation market’s true scale.
Aviation Market Size: 2024 Snapshot
In the Aviation sector, The commercial aviation market has regained altitude, with global airline revenues approaching the trillion-dollar threshold in 2024, according to industry outlooks that highlight resilient demand and disciplined capacity growth. The airline sector’s top line is on track for roughly $1 trillion in annual revenue and a low-single-digit net margin, according to IATA’s mid-year outlook, underscoring a recovery that is broadening beyond leisure into corporate and long-haul segments.
Traffic has rebounded to near or above pre-pandemic levels on many routes, aided by reopened borders and improved aircraft utilization. Global passenger volumes and load factors have normalized across most regions, though the pace of recovery varies by market maturity and travel purpose; aggregated air transport statistics confirm how close the sector is to a full return, data from ICAO show. With yields moderating from pandemic-era highs, revenue growth is increasingly tied to network optimization, ancillary sales, and the return of high-margin premium travel.
Fleet Expansion and Order Backlogs Define the Next Decade
While airline P&L captures the near-term market size, the long-cycle value embedded in aircraft and services is even larger. Over the next 20 years, the industry will take delivery of more than 42,000 new commercial jets as the global fleet expands and retires older, less efficient models. This multi-trillion-dollar equipment and services opportunity is mapped in Boeing’s Commercial Market Outlook, which projects sustained narrowbody dominance, rising intra-regional traffic, and strong demand for aftermarket support.
Order backlogs at Airbus and Boeing collectively hover around the mid-teens of thousands of aircraft, effectively sold out for several years. Supply-chain constraints across engines, castings, and avionics have tempered near-term deliveries, pushing airlines to extend leases and keep older aircraft flying. That dynamic, alongside high utilization, is buoying maintenance, repair, and overhaul demand for providers and OEM-linked service units at companies such as GE Aerospace, RTX, Safran, and Rolls-Royce, reinforcing the services share of aviation’s total addressable market.