Air travel remains a large and growing industry. It facilitates economic growth, world trade, international investment and tourism and is therefore central to the globalization taking place in many other industries. In the past decade, air travel has grown by seven percent per year. Travel for both business and leisure purposes grew strongly worldwide.

The US Airlines Industry has grown dramatically since the end of World War II. In 1945, the major airlines flew 3.3 billion revenue passenger miles (RPMs). By the mid 1970s, when deregulation was beginning to develop, the major carriers flew 130 billion RPMs. By 1988, after a decade of deregulation, the number of domestic RPMs had reached 330 billion.

Aruvian Research analyzes The US Airlines Industry in a PEST Framework Analysis. A PEST analysis is concerned with the environmental influences on a business. The acronym stands for the Political, Economic, Social and Technological issues that could affect the strategic development of a business. Identifying PEST influences is a useful way of summarizing the external environment in which a business operates.