50,000 U.S. Airplanes Disappear

Jason Blair

Tuesday, March 19, 2013 at 09:29 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The FAA transitioned from permanent aircraft registration to a mandatory triennial renewal process over three years ago, with the goal of updating the list of active U.S. aircraft.
This re-registration effort has significantly reduced the number of aircraft on the Civil Aircraft Registry, initially by over 17,000 and potentially by more than 50,000, representing an approximate 15% drop.
Accurate tracking of active aircraft through this process is crucial for the aviation industry to better understand the system's activity level and capacity.

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Just over three years ago the FAA began the process of updating registrations for all U.S. aircraft. The new registrations transitioned from “permanent” registration to requiring registration renewal every three years. One of the goals of this process was to update the list of aircraft that were still active in the U.S. aviation system.

At the end of September 2010, the day before re-registration began, there were 359,942 aircraft on the Civil Aircraft Registry, according to the FAA. At the end of December 2012, the most recent end-of-quarter date, there were 342,937 aircraft on the Registry, a reduction of more than 17,000 tail numbers.