The commercial aviation industry has changed drastically over the past several decades. In the early-to-mid-20th century, air travel was recognized as a niche mode of travel reserved for the wealthy. However, in recent years, the industry has evolved into a global network that connects billions of passengers and tons of cargo each year. In the early days of air travel, airlines operated small fleets of propeller aircraft that could only fly direct to a limited number of destinations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many domestic US carriers find themselves with the largest fleets in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,476,636,1000,565,645,536],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-airlines","category-american-airlines","category-china-southern","category-delta-air-lines","category-southwest-airlines","category-united-airlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t