Days Until International Civil Aviation Day

About International Civil Aviation Day

December 7 marks the anniversary of the 1944 signing of the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention), which established the International Civil Aviation Organization and the framework for international air travel rules still in use today.

The UN General Assembly formally recognized the day in 1996, more than five decades after the founding convention itself, highlighting aviation's role in global economic and social development.

The Chicago Convention's core principles — including national airspace sovereignty and internationally standardized safety rules — remain the legal foundation nearly all countries' civil aviation systems still operate under.

ICAO, the organization the Chicago Convention created, is headquartered in Montreal, Canada, and continues to set the technical safety and navigation standards air traffic controllers and pilots worldwide rely on.

ICAO's safety standards, first codified under the 1944 Chicago Convention, are credited by aviation-safety researchers with contributing to commercial air travel's status as one of the statistically safest modes of transportation per mile traveled.