Other support activities for air transportation — NAICS 488190 industry report

01

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–438855%

5–911416%

10–19649%

20–49659%

50–99477%

100–199132%

200–499142%

500+41%

Of 709 Canadian establishments with employees, 71% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario20729%

British Columbia17324%

Quebec15322%

Alberta9814%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Transportation and Warehousing, US · opened 2020

84.1%

1 year

67.4%

3 years

52.7%

5 years

36.1%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

02

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 488, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

regional competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 488 Support activities for transportation

A varied set of intermediaries. Brokerage is asset-light and contested by software; towing, marine services and airport handling are local and licence-bound.

Who sets the price: Carriers and shippers; brokers earn a spread.
The software it runs on: Freight brokerage and visibility platforms, port and airport systems, towing dispatch.

03

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 4881 Support activities for air transportation covers it.

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 4881

Airport Operations & Ground Handling SystemsExecution decides

binding constraint: distribution

Incumbent SITA and Amadeus Airport IT

Airports buy through multi-year public tenders written around SITA and Amadeus, and the certification path runs through IATA standards and the airlines that must interoperate. The airline record at 4811 cut on the same procurement wall from the other side of the apron.

NAICS 48817 vendors named6 sourced figuresOpen →

04

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 4881 Support activities for air transportation

Airport Operations & Ground Handling SystemsExecution decides

binding constraint: distribution

Incumbent SITA and Amadeus Airport IT

Airports buy through multi-year public tenders written around SITA and Amadeus, and the certification path runs through IATA standards and the airlines that must interoperate. The airline record at 4811 cut on the same procurement wall from the other side of the apron.

NAICS 48817 vendors named6 sourced figuresOpen →

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

05

Who works here

The occupations employed in Transportation and warehousing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Mail and message distribution occupations One industry 90.8%

Train crew operating occupations One industry 90.7%

Transportation officers and controllers One industry 75.7%

Transport truck and transit drivers Mostly one sector 65.4%

Managers in transportation and postal and courier services Mostly one sector 63.9%

Taxi, personal service and delivery service drivers Mostly one sector 57.7%

Contractors and supervisors, technical maintenance trades and heavy equipment and transport operators Mostly one sector 22.6%

Water and rail transport operators and labourers and related occupations Mostly one sector 11.4%

Automotive service technicians Mostly one sector 9.1%

Crane operators and water well drillers Mostly one sector 6.6%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 13.9%

Customer and information services representatives Across the economy 5.8%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 5.1%

Survey, statistical and data entry occupations Across the economy 5%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 3.9%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 3.7%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 3.3%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 3.1%

Administrative, property and payroll officers Across the economy 2.7%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 2.7%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. But note the shape of this industry: 71% of establishments have fewer than ten employees, and at that size most of these roles are one person wearing several hats, or bought in from outside.

All 162 occupations →