Aviation Associations By The Numbers

The aviation industry is not short on associations. If anything, it’s oversaturated.

Most professionals involved in business aviation or general aviation transactions already belong to at least one organization—NBAA, NATA, AOPA, IADA, GLADA, or a combination of them. Membership is often treated as table stakes: a signal of seriousness, legitimacy, or industry alignment.

We love organizations, and are members of many. But you can't do them all, and you have to be selective about where to spend your money, and more importantly, your time! 

But when you strip away tradition and prestige, a harder question remains:

What do you actually get for your time and money?

This article looks at aviation associations by the numbers—membership size, cost, access, and practical value—and explains where AAOA fits for professionals whose work revolves around aircraft transactions, deal flow, and cross-discipline collaboration.

 
The Big Associations: Scale Comes at a Cost

NBAA (~11,000 members)

NBAA is the most recognizable name in business aviation. Its strength is scale: regulatory advocacy, safety initiatives, and large events like NBAA-BACE.

That same scale is also its weakness.

With thousands of members spanning every corner of the industry, access is diluted. Networking is largely self-directed. Outcomes are indirect. For transaction-focused professionals, NBAA is useful context—but rarely a catalyst.

NBAA is excellent at representing the industry.

It is not designed to help you close a deal.

AOPA (~385,000 members)

AOPA dwarfs every other association numerically. That’s because it serves pilots and owners broadly, not transaction professionals specifically.

If you fly GA, AOPA is valuable for advocacy and education.

If you buy, sell, finance, insure, or manage aircraft as part of your business, AOPA’s size becomes noise, not leverage.

 
The Selective Groups: High Trust, Narrow Utility

IADA (~170 member companies)

IADA is intentionally exclusive. Membership signals credibility in aircraft sales and brokerage, and that signal matters in certain transactions.

The tradeoff is scope.

IADA is excellent within the broker-to-broker and broker-to-buyer ecosystem. It does not address the broader transaction environment—insurance, maintenance, valuation, digital records, finance, or operational realities that increasingly influence deal outcomes.

High trust. Narrow lane.
 

GLADA (~120 members)

GLADA works because it’s small, regional, and relationship-driven. Members know each other. Deals happen.

But GLADA’s strength—geographic concentration—is also its ceiling. Its model does not scale nationally or cross-discipline.

GLADA proves an important point:

Small, curated groups outperform large associations when relevance is high.

AAOA takes that lesson and removes the geographic constraint.
 

NATA (~2,300 member companies): Operational Value, Not Transactional

NATA serves operators, FBOs, MROs, and service providers well. It excels at operational guidance, safety programs, and compliance support.

But NATA is not transaction-centric. Like NBAA, it supports the environment around deals rather than the deals themselves.

 
The Gap No One Else Fills

Across these organizations, a pattern emerges:

• Large associations optimize for advocacy and scale
• Selective associations optimize for credibility within a narrow role
• Regional groups optimize for local trust
  
  None are built to optimize cross-discipline collaboration around aircraft transactions

Modern aircraft transactions don’t happen in silos.

A single deal can involve:

• Brokers and dealers
• Maintenance providers
• Records specialists
• Appraisers
• Insurers
• Operators and owners
• Finance and legal professionals

Yet most associations group members by role, not by outcome.

That’s the structural gap AAOA is designed to fill.

 
Where AAOA Is Different—By Design

AAOA is intentionally small, affordable, and participation-driven.

$379/year standard membership
National, cross-discipline scope
Explicit expectation of engagement—not passive membership

AAOA does not compete with NBAA, IADA, or NATA. It complements them by focusing on what they don’t measure or enforce:

Direct collaboration
Faster time-to-value
Signal over scale
Outcomes over optics

AAOA is built for professionals who already understand aviation—and want better alignment, better conversations, and better results.

 
Who AAOA Is For

AAOA membership makes sense if you are involved in:

Buying or selling aircraft
Advising owners or operators
Supporting transactions through maintenance, records, insurance, or valuation
Building partnerships that require trust across roles

If your goal is lobbying, mass exposure, or industry visibility, AAOA is not a replacement for large associations.

If your goal is getting the right people in the room and doing something useful with them, AAOA earns its place.

 
Final Thought

Most aviation associations sell access.

Some sell credibility.

Very few are designed for action.

AAOA exists for professionals who believe collaboration should be intentional, measurable, and worth the time it takes.

That’s not a mass-market proposition.

It’s a deliberate distinction.