Skip to Main Content

Airlines and Commercial Aviation Research Guide

Periodicals & Trade Literature

This section is primarily for trade publications but does include a few other related titles. We have tried to list titles that would be useful for those looking at the business aspects as well as the development of the commercial aviation industry. We have focused on publications in the United States, but have included a few international titles. While we do not list all of the technical journals, we have included a few with coverage in the early years as those titles would be important to researching the early developments, and those with coverage that goes beyond just technical information.

Newspapers may be more accessible than many trade resources and will cover the industry. Often, large newspapers in areas where airplanes and parts manufacturers are located cover the businesses and the industry. For example, in 2017, the New York Times ran "A Look Inside Airbus’s Epic Assembly Line" that included some great images of a factory in Alabama and put that factory into the larger supply chain. Full-text databases often include newspapers as well as trade publications, so see the Databases page of this guide.

Of note, some titles have moved from print to internet-based access either through web pages or publisher products. We have included the links for websites, but see our Databases page for those sources the Library subscribes to. These are only some of the periodicals covering the industry, so please search the online catalog for additional resources.

The following materials link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to digital content are provided when available.

Online News

Many of journals used by the industry have consolidated and moved online and we have included those we have been able to identify.