Serge Dassault is a French entrepreneur and conservative politician. According to "Forbes" magazine, as of 2006 he was the 56th richest person in the world. Dassault is the son of Marcel Dassault, from whom he inherited the Dassault Group. Since the elder Dassault's death, he has continued developing the company, with the help of current CEO Charles Edelstenne. Serge Dassault studied at the École polytechnique and Supaéro.

David G. Neeleman (born October 16, 1959) is the founder and former CEO of JetBlue Airways. Neeleman, an American of Dutch descent, was born in Brazil. He attended Brighton High School in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, and attended the University of Utah for three years before dropping out. He served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was co-founder (with June Morris) of charter airline Morris Air, a low-fare airline.

Igor Ivanovich (or Ihor Ivanovych) Sikorsky (25 May, 1889 - 26 October, 1972) was a pioneer of aviation who designed the first four-engine fixed-wing aircraft and the first successful helicopter of the most common configuration (single main rotor tail rotor).

Sherman Fairchild matriculated at Harvard University in 1915 where, in his freshman year, he invented the flash camera. He also contracted tuberculosis. Under the advice of his physician, he moved to Arizona to recover in the drier climate and transferred his enrollment to the University of Arizona. There he learned about aerial photography. He would later transfer to Columbia University. To assist the military in World War I, he developed a new shutter mechanism for aerial cameras, …

Herbert D. Kelleher (born March 12, 1931) is the co-founder, Chairman and former CEO of Southwest Airlines (based in the United States). Kelleher was born and raised in Haddon Heights, New Jersey. He has a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University and a Juris Doctor from New York University. At Wesleyan he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He is married to the former Joan Negley and they have four children.

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was, in his time, an aviator, engineer, industrialist, film producer and director, a playboy, an eccentric, and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He is famous for setting multiple, world air-speed records, building the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 Hercules airplanes, producing the movies "Hell's Angels" and "The Outlaw", owning and expanding TWA, and for his debilitating eccentric behavior in later life.

Marcel Dassault, born Marcel Bloch was a French aircraft industrialist. After graduating from the lycée Condorcet, "Breguet School" and Supaero, he invented a type of aircraft propeller used by the French army during World War I and founded the "Société des Avions Marcel Bloch" aircraft company. Following the nationalization of his company in 1936, under the Front Populaire, he stayed as a director.

Dr. Albert Plesman was a Dutch pioneer in aviation and co-founder of KLM. He was born as the son of an egg trader from The Hague. In 1915 he joined the mobilized Dutch airforce as a professional officer, at the time still called the "militaire luchtvaartafdeling" (military aviation department), in Soesterberg. After the Great War in which the Netherlands remained neutral, he began with the organization of the ELTA, …

Dr. Tony Ryan, who lives in Ardclough Co. Kildare, is an Irish multi-millionaire, founder of Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) and co-founder of Ryanair with Christy Ryan and Liam Lonergan. Ryanair is believed to be the main source of his current wealth: the company is now one of the biggest airlines in Europe and is valued at several billion euro. Tony Ryan is believed to have a personal fortune ranging between €800m and €1bn.

Anton Herman Gerard Fokker (April 6, 1890 - December 23, 1939) was a pioneer in aviation and a Dutch-American aircraft manufacturer.

Robert Ellsworth Gross was an American businessman involved in the field of aviation. His first venture, the Viking Flying Boat Company, failed with the loss of the aircraft market brought on by the Great Depression. Gross was born in Newton, Massachusetts. In 1932, a group of investors led by Robert and his brother Courtland bought the Lockheed Aircraft Company from the bankrupt Detroit Aircraft Corporation, renaming it the Lockheed Corporation.

William Edward Boeing was an aviation pioneer who founded The Boeing Company. Boeing was born in Detroit, Michigan to a wealthy German mining engineer named Wilhelm Böing who had made a fortune developing large low-grade taconite iron ore deposits and who had a sideline as a timber merchant. Americanizing his name to "William" after returning from being educated in Switzerland in 1900 to attend Yale University, …

William (Bill) Powell Lear (26 June 1902 - 14 May 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. He is best known for founding the Lear Jet Corporation, a manufacturer of business jets. He also developed the 8-track cartridge, an audio tape system popular in the 1960s and 1970s.

Sanford "Sandy" N. McDonnell (born 1922) is a chairman emeritus of McDonnell Douglas Corporation. McDonnell was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and is the nephew of McDonnell Aircraft founder James Smith McDonnell. McDonnell earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Princeton University in 1945, another bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1948, and a master's degree in applied mechanics from Washington University in St.

Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. (April 6, 1892 - February 1, 1981) was a United States aircraft industrialist. His most significant achievement was as founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1921 (the company later merged into McDonnell Douglas Corporation). He received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1914.

Thornton "T" Arnold Wilson was the Chairman of the Board and chief executive officer of Boeing corporation. He earned his B.S. in aeronautical Engineering from Iowa State University and a master's degree from the California Institute of Technology. He also attended the MIT Sloan School of Management's Sloan Fellows program, but did not graduate. While attending Iowa State Wilson was a member of the swim team.

John Knudsen "Jack" Northrop (November 10, 1895 - February 18, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist. He co-founded the Lockheed Corporation in 1927. He was the founder and eponym of the Northrop Corporation in 1939. Northrop's first job in aviation was in working for Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company (later Lockheed Corporation) in 1916. In 1923, Northrop joined Douglas Aircraft Company.

Steve Ridgway is the chief executive officer of Virgin Atlantic Airways. He attended Oxford Brookes University Business School and began his business career as a builder of power boats. Formerly Virgin Atlantic's vice-president of customer services, he was appointed as Managing Director of Virgin Atlantic in April 1998.

Walter Thomas Varney (born December 26, 1888 in San Francisco, California - died January 25, 1967 in Santa Barbara, California) was an American aviation pioneer who founded forerunners of two major U.S. airlines, United Airlines and Continental Airlines. Varney was also one of the most prominent airmail contractors of the early 20th Century. Varney served as a pilot in the Aviation Section, …

Lawrence Dale "Larry" Bell (April 5, 1894 - October 20, 1956) was an American industrialist and founder of Bell Aircraft Corporation. Bell was born in Mentone, Indiana and lived there until 1907, when his family moved to Santa Monica, California. He joined his older brother Grover and stunt pilot Lincoln Beachey as a mechanic in 1912. Grover Bell was killed in a plane crash the following year, and Bell vowed to quit aviation for good; however, …

Hall Livingstone Hibbard (July 25, 1903 - June 6, 1996) was an engineer and administrator of the Lockheed Corporation beginning with the company's purchase by a board of investors lead by Robert E. Gross in 1932. Born in Kansas, he received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics at the College of Emporia in 1925. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two years later.

Leroy Randle Grumman was an American industrialist and aeronautical engineer. Born in Long Island, New York, he demonstrated an early interest in aviation. As a teenager, Grumman predicted that "the final perfection of the airplane will be one of the greatest triumphs that man has gained over matter." Still, it’s doubtful that young Grumman, ever reserved and self-effacing, …

Michael O'Leary is chief executive of the low-cost airline Ryanair. He is one of the Republic of Ireland's richest people, with an estimated fortune of €636 million.

Malcolm Loughead formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company along with his brother, Allan Loughead. This company went on to become the Lockheed Corporation.

Robert Forman Six was born June 25, 1907, in Stockton, California. He was the CEO of Continental Airlines from 1936 to 1981. He died October 6, 1986, in his Los Angeles International Airport office. Six's career began in the earliest days of U.S. commercial aviation. His determined, scrappy, risk-taking nature paid off for Continental Airlines, the company that would for fifty years be forged in his image. Owing in large part to the foundation laid by Six, …

Howard Millar is deputy CEO and the CFO for Irish low-cost airline Ryanair.

Errett Lobban Cord, also known as E. L. Cord (20 July, 1894 - 2 January, 1974) was a leader in United States transport during the early and middle 20th century. Cord founded the Cord Corporation in 1929 as a holding company for over 150 companies he controlled, mostly in the field of transportation.

Allan Haines Loughead (January 20, 1889 - May 26, 1969), later changed to Allan Haines Lockheed, formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company along with his brother, Malcolm Loughead that became Lockheed Corporation. He was born in Niles, California, the youngest son of Flora and John Loughead, he had a half-brother Victor, a sister Hope, and a brother Malcolm Loughead. After his parents separated, Flora took the children to Santa Barbara, …

George Conrad Westervelt was an U.S. Navy engineer who created the company "Pacific Aero Products Co." together with William Boeing. After a while, Westervelt left the company and Boeing changed the name of the company to the Boeing Airplane Company.

Aziz Yıldırım is currently the 52nd Chairman of Türkiye Süper Ligi club Fenerbahçe SK. He is currently serving his fourth two-year term since coming to power. During his leadership he made significant changes in the club's structure and infrastructure; Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium was extended to 52.500, %16 of the club went public and Fenerbahçe name became a trademark. He started Fenerium chain which designs and sells Fenerbahçe's official products.

Henri Potez) was a French aircraft industrialist. He studied in the french aeronautics school "Supaéro". With Marcel Dassault, he was the inventor of the Potez-Bloch propeller which after 1917, have been set on most of all Allied planes of WWI. In 1919, he founded his own company Aviations Potez that would between the war built many planes and seaplanes in factories at this times considered as most modern of the world. He bought Alessandro Anzani company in 1923.

Sir Michael Bishop, CBE (b. February 10, 1942) is a British businessman who has spent his working life in civil aviation. He was born in Bowdon, Cheshire, and educated at Mill Hill School in north London. In 1963 he joined Mercury Airlines, which was taken over by British Midland Airways in 1964. He rose to become General Manager in 1969 and Managing Director in 1972, and in 1978 was appointed Chairman after leading a management buy-out.

Michimasa Fujino is the president and chief executive officer of the Honda Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company. Interested in aviation as a child, Fujino trained in aeronautical engineering and joined Honda in 1984. From 1986 to 1995, he studied advanced aeronautics at Mississippi State University with a small group of Honda engineers that participated in the development of the MH02.

Ulick McEvaddy, a former Irish army officer and native of Swinford County Mayo. In 1984, along with his brother Desmond McEvaddy, he established Omega Air Inc; a Washington-based US Corporation that specialises in the sale and lease of aircraft. Omega Air has become one of the biggest supplier and traders of Boeing 707 in the world. Today Omega Air has developed into a group of six aviation companies whose services include spare part sales and leasing, engine overhaul and repair, …

Nuri Demirağ was an early Turkish industrialist. He was one of the first millionaires of the Turkish Republic. His first innovation was the production of cigarette paper. Demirag then invested his capital in to the development of the Turkish railway network. Because of this investment, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, give him the surname Demirağ, which translates as Iron Network. In 1936 he started his own aircraft factory at Beşiktaş, …

Thomas Victor Jones was the Chairman and CEO of Northrop Corporation. He graduated magna cum laude in engineering from Stanford University. He went to work at Douglas Aircraft Company in 1942. He worked for the Brazilian Air Ministry to create the Aeronautical Institute of Technology from 1947 to 1951. Around 1953 he went to work for the RAND Corporation where he published a study on transport planes for the U.S. Air Force.

Dr. Temel Kotil (born 1959 in Rize, Turkey) is the President and CEO of Turkish Airlines and Member of the Board of Governors at the International Air Transport Association.