The European Commission's Observatory of the Air Transport Market

A very useful source of information on civil aviation developments is the annual and topical reports produced on aviation for the European Commission. These are described as an Observatory of the Air Transport Market. They give a write up of aviation developments with a focus on developments within Europe but also with the wider global context well covered.

This is one of those cases where there is a trade off between detail and timeliness, with the former winning out in this case. The 222 page Annual Report 2007 was finalised in December 2008.

They were originally produced by the Department of Air Transport at Cranfield University but this is now done by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

The two 2008 topical reports are on Fuel and Air Transport (completed before the collapse of the oil price "super spike"), and Airline Business Models.