Much of the non-newspaper, printed information through the mid-1980s is reported in the two volumes of my Airline Bibliography: The Salem College Guide to Sources in English (Westport, Conn.: Locust Hill Press, 1986-1988). Uncited 1980s-1990s data employed in the compilation of this encyclopedia, from individual periodical articles to airline-oriented resources on the Internet, will be included in The Airline Bibliography 2 (TAB-2), which is scheduled for publication by Scarecrow Press.
Three other important bibliographic sources are those from Christopher H. Sterling, Kenneth G. Madden, and ICAO. Dr. Sterling’s Commercial Air Transport Books: An Annotated Bibliography of Airlines, Airliners, and the Air Transport Industry (McLean, Va.: Paladwr Press, 1996), should prove a handy listing for post-1985 book titles until TAB-2 appears. Kenneth Madden, who contributed significantly to Sterling’s title, has published his own bibliography of continuously revised air safety related items on the University of North Texas World Wide Web server, which is noted in the Internet resources section below. The Library Bulletin from the Library of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) provides a monthly listing of new titles, including aviation periodical articles not commonly available, and is available over the World Wide Web (also noted below). Unfortunately, ICAO halted online publication of this valuable tool with the December 2000 issue.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has produced a handy guide to airline coding, both its own (two/three letter) and that for ICAO (three letter), in its Airline Coding Directory, which is published in April, August, and December. Although free sources for both codes are available, the IATA Web site, noted in the Internet section, is the most direct method to receive the latest edition available.
The best printed source for tracking detailed world airline developments since the early 1960s continues to be the annual “World Airline Reports” provided in the July (previously May or June) issues of Air Transport World. This is supplemented by the “News Briefs” in each monthly issue, along with “Facts & Figures” pages at the end of each number.
Later information is weekly available from the “Airline Observer” column in Aviation Week and Space Technology. David Field’s column “Business Travel Today” in the newspaper USA Today is a helpful print method of quickly determining new airline routes and services, albeit with a North American or transatlantic emphasis.
Over the years, numerous airline history books have been published. Any review of these always begins with R. E. G. Davies’ definitive A
History of the World's Airlines originally authored in 1960 and reprinted (New York: AMS Press, 1983). Davies has also penned histories of airlines in the U. S., Asia, and South America, as well as pictorial reviews of a number of noted companies.
Of particular value as a complement for Davies covering another geographical region is Ben R. Guttery’s Encyclopedia of African Airlines (Jefferson, N. C.: McFarland & Co., 1998) and the volume that Bill Leary edited in the Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography series, The Airline Industry (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1992). Six of the profiles that appear in this work were offered, in earlier version, in that work. Finally, of course, no airline encyclopedia would be complete without a nod toward John Stroud’s classic Annals of British and Commonwealth Air Transport, 1919-1960 (London: Putnam, 1960).
If one can find a copy, Paul R. Martin’s Airline Hand Book (9th ed., Cranston, R. I.: Aero Research, 1985) is invaluable for the identification of many defunct airlines. Additionally, the U. K.-based Shepard Press has been publishing Helicopter Operators' & Buyers'Handbook and the Regional Airline Handbook since 1986, well supplementing Martin. The Regional Airline Handbook began as an annual feature in Commuter World magazine, while the Helicopter Operators' & Buyers' Handbook has been published in association with Helicopter World. Gerry Manning’s 1000 Airlines in Colour (London: Airlife Publishing, Ltd./Still-water, Minn.: Voyageur Press, 1998) is useful not only for liveries but for brief profiles (and ending dates) of numerous little-known operators. The World Aviation Directory, published in the spring and fall by Mc-Graw Hill, has been a standard reference aid since 1958. That publisher now also offers the most helpful book-length print source to the new electronic sources: John Allen Merry’s 300 Best Aviation Web Sites:. . . and 100 More Worth Bookmarking, which was update and expanded in June 1999.
German airline historian B. I. Hengi, beginning in 1997, has offered a semi-annual compact review of world airlines in his Airliners Worldwide (London/Stillwater, MN: Airlife Publishing, Ltd./Voyageur Press. Each airline profiled features a color airliner photograph. Employing the same format, Hengi, in 2000, also published a valuable retrospective review, Airlines Remembered: Over 200 Airlines of the Past, Described and Illustrated in Colour
JP Airline-Fleets International remains an invaluable listing of fleets by country and airline. It has come from Bucher & Co. at Zurich since 1966. Great insight has also been had through a regular consultation with the annual Exxon Survey of the Turbine-Engined Fleets of the World's Airlines previously published as a special supplement to the magazine Exxon Air World but with the demise of that journal, freestanding. Although many hundreds of titles have been printed concerning the aircraft of various manufacturers by group or individually, for a review of the work by airplane builders one should consult Rod Simpson’s Airlife's Commercial Aircraft and Airliners: A Guide to Postwar Commercial Aircraft Manufacturers and Their Aircraft (London: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1999).
World History
