The United States aviation industry, which has been hit very hard in the past few years, has just reported that it has shed one quarter of its workforce over the past ten years. These stats go on to show that the largest airlines have been hit the hardest.

Apparently one in every four jobs in the airline industry disappeared in the ten years ending December 31^st, according to stats from the United States Bureau of Transportation. As a result of this, airlines employed 557,674 full-time and part-time workers at the end of 2009. These figures are down more than 170,000 from the end of 1990.

As said before, the job loss count was more pronounced in larger carriers. United Airlines is less than half of its size that it was back in 1999. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and subsequent reorganization during 2002- 2006. American Airlines has even seen its numbers drop by 26 percent from its peak of 97,199 in 1999. Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, which merged together in 2008, showed a very similar steep drop in employment numbers.

There have been a lot of different factors behind these big job losses for all carriers. The Bureau of Transportation shows that things like the economy, fluctuating fuel prices, increased security at airports, taxes and other things have really taken its total on people.

Of course, there have been a few carriers that have added jobs over the past ten years. The few carriers that have added jobs include JetBlue, Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines.