A Methodology for Long Range Prediction of Air Transportation

The purpose of a research study reported in this paper was to provide a framework and methodology for long term projection of demand for aviation fuels. It required a close examination of some of the fundamental problems of predicting long run futures. The approach taken includes two basic components. The first was a new technique for establishing the socioeconomic environment within which the future aviation industry is embedded. The concept utilized was a definition of an overall societal objective for the very long run future. Within a framework so defined, a set of scenarios by which the future will unfold are then written. These scenarios provide the determinants of the air transport industry operations and accordingly provide an assessment of future fuel requirements.

The second part was the modeling of the industry in terms of an abstracted set of variables to represent the overall industry performance on a macro scale. The model was validated by testing the desired output variables from the model with histroical data over the past decades.