Air Transportation: An Overview

By Prof. Rajkumar Sureshchandra Pant | IIT Bombay

Learners enrolled: 2984 | Exam registration: 662

ABOUT THE COURSE:

Air transportation plays a pivotal role in the global economy, enabling rapid movement of people and goods across vast distances. The modern air transport system is a complex, highly coordinated network that includes not only aircraft and airlines, but also airports, air traffic management systems, and international regulatory frameworks. This course aims to offer a comprehensive overview of four key pillars of the air transport ecosystem, viz.,

Airlines – understanding airline operations, business models, alliances, fleet management, scheduling, and the economics of air travel.
Airports – exploring airport planning, layout, design, lighting, marking, operations, financing, environment impact assessment of airport development, and overview of heliports & vertiports.
Air Traffic Management (ATM) – examining the systems and technologies that ensure safe, efficient airspace utilization, including navigation, surveillance, and control strategies, free flight and human factors in ATM, and ATM of Urban Air Mobility systems.
Global Aviation Perspectives – providing insight into international aviation organizations (e.g., ICAO, IATA, FAA, DGCA), regulatory frameworks, safety standards, human factors in aircraft maintenance, and emerging trends in air transportation, e.g., buoyancy engineering for sustainable aviation.

India is poised to become one of the largest aviation markets in the world. With rapid airport expansion, increasing airline fleets, and major government initiatives, there is an urgent need for engineer to appreciate the broader landscape of air transportation sector.

By equipping students with a multidisciplinary foundation in air transportation, this course will help bridge the gap between technical education and the dynamic needs of the global Aviation industry, and prepare them for a career in airport and airline planning, aviation consultancy, air traffic services, and policy-making bodies.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Undergraduate and Postgraduate students of Aerospace / Aeronautical / Mechanical and Civil Engineering, and students from other disciplines who are interested to get an overview of this field. Students of MBA in Aviation Management, BSc in Aviation, or Aircraft Maintenance will also benefit by several topics covered in this course.

PREREQUISITES: Exposure to basic mathematics, and Aerospace Engineering terms. Having completed the NPTEL Course: Introduction to Aerospace Engineering/Flight would be desirable, though not a pre-requisite

INDUSTRY SUPPORT: All industries and companies dealing with various aspects of Air Transportation, e.g., Airlines, Airports, Air Traffic Management, Maintenance Repair and Overhaul, Regulatory agencies, and Aviation Consultancy firms.

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	12 weeks
Category :	Aerospace Engineering Flight Mechanics
Credit Points :	3
Level :	Undergraduate
Start Date :	19 Jan 2026
End Date :	10 Apr 2026
Enrollment Ends :	02 Feb 2026
Exam Registration Ends :	20 Feb 2026
Exam Date :	24 Apr 2026 IST
NCrF Level	4.5 — 8.0

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Background of Global Civil Aviation

Week 2: History of Global Civil Aviation

Week 3: Introduction to Airline and Airport Economics

Week 4: Airline Yield Management

Week 5: Airline Scheduling and Disruption Management

Week 6: Airline Fleet Planning

Week 7: Introduction to Air Traffic Management

Week 8: Air Navigation and Onboard Avionics

Week 9: Airport Layout & Design Part-1

Week 10: Airport Layout & Design Part-2

Week 11: Advanced Operational Procedures and Standards

Week 12: Modern Developments in Air Transportation systems

Books and references

TEXTBOOKS
Air Transportation, A Global Management Perspective, Alexander Wells, Routledge, 2023

Planning and Design of Airports, 4th Edition, Robert Horonjeff & Francis X. McKelvey, Seth Young, William Sproule, 5^th Edition, McGraw Hill, 2010

Fundamentals of Air Traffic Control, 5^th Edition, Michael S. Nolan, CENGAGE Learning, 2011

REFERENCES
An introduction to Airline Economics, William E O Conner, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1995

The Airline industry and the Impact of Deregulation, 2nd Edition, George Williams, Avebury Aviation, 1994

Introduction to Civil Aviation, 2nd Edition, Naval Taneja, Lexington Books, 1988

Instructor bio

Prof. Rajkumar Sureshchandra Pant

IIT Bombay

Prof. Rajkumar S. Pant has Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering. He has been a member of faculty of Aerospace Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay since December 1989, and is currently a Professor in Higher Academic Grade. He has also worked for five years in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in the Design & Engineering Department.

Prof. Pant is an alumnus of College of Aeronautics, Cranfield University, UK, where he earned his Ph.D. under Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme, IIT Madras, where he did his Masters in Aeronautical Engineering, and Panjab Engineering College, Chandigarh where he did his Batchelors degree in Aeronautical Engineering.

He has carried out short-term research engagements at several top-ranking institutes and universities all over the world, e.g., Imperial College London, Cambridge University, Texas A&M University, and Instituito Technologico de Aeronautica, Brazil. He has also been a visiting faculty at Virginia Tech (one year), NTU Singapore (one year) and Plaksha University (six months).

In 1999, he launched a new Department Elective course on Air Transportation for Undergraduate and Masters students of IIT Bombay, based on his exposure and research as part of his doctoral studies. This popular course ran every year for a decade, and was revived in 2020 as a summer course, and has been offered twice again since then. In 2023, he completely revived the contents of this course and ran it as an Institute Elective course, which was attended by around 300 UG and PG students from almost all departments of IIT Bombay.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.

The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).

Date and Time of Exams: April 24, 2026 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.

Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.

The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.

Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 8 assignments out of the total 12 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

Please note that assignments encompass all types (including quizzes, programming tasks, and essay submissions) available in the specific week.

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Bombay .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

SWAYAM Helpline / Support