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Aviation glossary

Chicago Convention

Also: Convention on International Civil Aviation

Registration and rules

International treaty signed in 1944 that sets out the principles of international civil aviation and gave rise to ICAO.

What it is

The Convention on International Civil Aviation was signed in Chicago on 7 December 1944, as governments looked ahead to the end of the Second World War and the growth in air transport that would follow. It entered into force in 1947 and has since been ratified by almost every state. International Civil Aviation Day is marked each year on 7 December to commemorate the signing.

The Convention sets out principles that still apply: every state has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory, an aircraft has the nationality of the state in which it is registered, and states undertake to follow common standards. Those standards are developed in the Annexes, which ICAO keeps up to date and which cover everything from registration marks to accident investigation. Traffic rights, by contrast, are negotiated mainly through bilateral agreements.

Related terms

ICAOSpecialised agency of the United Nations that sets the standards and recommended practices for international civil aviation. Freedoms of the airSet of rights a country grants to foreign airlines to overfly its territory, land there, or carry passengers and cargo to, from and beyond it. Aircraft registerOfficial record kept by each state of the aircraft entered on it, listing their registration, type, serial number and owner. ICAO Annex 13ICAO’s international standard setting out how civil aviation accidents and incidents are investigated, with the sole aim of preventing future ones. Nationality prefixOpening letters or digits of a registration that show the country in which an aircraft is registered, such as G for the United Kingdom or N for the United States.
Whole glossary

Cite

To cite this page in academic work, an article or Wikipedia, choose the style and copy the reference. The access date is today.

This page was last updated on October 9, 2026

APA

Vuelopedia. (2026, October 9). Chicago Convention. Retrieved October 16, 2026, from https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention

MLA

“Chicago Convention.” Vuelopedia, Fundación Poderia, 9 Oct. 2026, vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Chicago

Vuelopedia. “Chicago Convention.” Fundación Poderia. Last modified October 9, 2026. https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention.

Harvard

Vuelopedia (2026) Chicago Convention. Available at: https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention (Accessed: 16 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{vuelopedia_en_glossary_chicago_convention,
  author       = {{Vuelopedia}},
  title        = {{Chicago Convention}},
  publisher    = {Fundación Poderia},
  year         = {2026},
  date         = {2026-10-09},
  url          = {https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention},
  howpublished = {\url{https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention}},
  urldate      = {2026-10-16},
  note         = {Accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Wikipedia

{{cite web |url=https://vuelopedia.org/en/glossary/chicago-convention |title=Chicago Convention |website=Vuelopedia |publisher=Fundación Poderia |date=2026-10-09 |access-date=2026-10-16 |language=en}}

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