Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, global air transport demand was expected to triple between 2020 and 2050. The pandemic, which reduced global air travel significantly, provides an opportunity to discuss the scale, distribution and growth of aviation until 2018, also with a view to consider the climate change implications of a return to volume growth. Industry statistics, data provided by supranational organizations, and national surveys are evaluated to develop a pre-pandemic understanding of air transport demand at global, regional, national and individual scales. Results suggest that the share of the world’s population travelling by air in 2018 was 11%, with at most 4% taking international flights. Data also supports that a minor share of air travelers is responsible for a large share of warming: The percentile of the most frequent fliers – at most 1% of the world population - likely accounts for more than half of the total emissions from passenger air travel. Individual users of private aircraft can contribute to emissions of up to 7,500 t CO₂ per year. Findings are specifically relevant with regard to the insight that a large share of global aviation emissions is not covered by policy agreements.

在 COVID-19 危机之前，全球航空运输需求预计将在 2020 年至 2050 年之间增长两倍。大流行显着减少了全球航空旅行，为讨论到 2018 年航空的规模、分布和增长提供了机会，同时考虑恢复销量增长对气候变化的影响。对行业统计数据、超国家组织提供的数据和国家调查进行评估，以形成对全球、地区、国家和个人规模的航空运输需求的大流行前理解。结果表明，2018 年全球乘飞机旅行的人口比例为 11%，其中最多 4% 乘坐国际航班。数据还支持一小部分航空旅客对大部分变暖负责：最常乘坐飞机的百分位数（最多占世界人口的 1%）可能占航空客运总排放量的一半以上。私人飞机的个人用户最多可排放 7,500 吨二氧化碳每年_{2 次。}调查结果与政策协议未涵盖全球航空排放的很大一部分这一见解特别相关。