People

A typical four-passenger airplane might not look like much compared to a 400-passenger Boeing 747, but when you put General Aviation’s (GA’s) 231,607 active airplanes together, they form America’s largest source of air transportation. GA flies 166 million passengers every year, making it America’s largest "airline."

Many people think that the majority of airline pilots come from the military. That was true years ago, but today, 90 percent of new airline pilots are trained by private flight schools and universities located in the United States.

Even the U.S. Air Force uses civilian flight schools. During this training, these Air Force pilot candidates must successfully earn their civilian private pilot certificate before they can advance into the military’s own Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (SUPT) program.

The United States has more than 3,400 flight schools. Many are large, formal schools with advanced curricula, state-of-the-art simulators, and college degree programs. Others are small businesses run by people who love teaching others to fly. If you look hard enough, you still can find the one-airplane, one-person flight schools that operate from grass runways in small-town America.

All of these schools are run by professionals and are closely supervised by the Federal Aviation Administration. But more importantly, they are run by people who have invested their lives and fortunes building a business so that they could live their version of the American dream. To find a flight school near you enter your zip code in our searchable database.

In fact, Warren E. Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, so believes in the business of flight training that he purchased the largest flight school in the world, America’s own Flight Safety International, which trains more than 75,000 people a year to become pilots or professionals in other areas of aviation.

Goods

FedEx launched the guaranteed overnight delivery business in 1971. Since then, Americans have become addicted to overnight shipping.

Whether it’s a new cardigan sweater from Lands’ End that arrives just in time for Christmas or urgent business documents needed for a meeting the next day, companies like FedEx, DHL, and UPS can guarantee the overnight delivery of your package or letter.

Express shipping companies use huge cargo airplanes. But they also use a much greater number of smaller GA airplanes.

These small airplanes bring packages and letters from hundreds of outlying cities and towns to the express shipper’s hub, where the packages can catch a ride on the big birds if needed.

Most of these small cargo airplanes are not owned by the big shipping companies. Small, private firms own and operate single- or twin-engine GA airplanes on regional routes.

When they’re not carrying packages at the beginning and end of each day, many are used as charter airplanes to carry local business people.