International Civil Aviation Day
Next: December 7, 2026
One sky, shared by every nation.
The story
Where it comes from
On 7 December 1944, in the Grand Ballroom of the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, 52 of the 54 nations at an international conference signed the Convention on International Civil Aviation, known as the Chicago Convention. It created the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the shared rules that let the world's airlines cross borders safely and peacefully. ICAO's Assembly declared 7 December International Civil Aviation Day from the convention's 50th anniversary in 1994, and in 1996 the UN General Assembly, helped by Canada, made it an official UN day.
How it's celebrated
ICAO marks the day at its headquarters in Montréal, and around the world there are educational events, aviation lectures, classroom activities and air displays. Every five years, on ICAO's anniversaries, its Council chooses a special theme. For travellers it is a day to thank the controllers, crews and engineers who keep the skies running.
Did you know
- ICAO has 193 member states, and one of its regional offices is in Bangkok.
- An agreement drawn up in Chicago the same day set out the first 'freedoms of the air': to fly across a country without landing, and to land there for non-traffic purposes.
- ICAO gives airports four-letter location indicators for flight planning, separate from the three-letter IATA codes; Singapore Changi is WSSS to ICAO and SIN to IATA.
Coming up next
- Georges Méliès's Birthday · December 8, 2026
- International Anti-Corruption Day · December 9, 2026
- Human Rights Day · December 10, 2026
- Nobel Prize Day · December 10, 2026
- International Mountain Day · December 11, 2026
- UNICEF's Birthday · December 11, 2026