The .aero domain continues to offer a unique service to the industry, providing an exclusive top level domain as a development platform for innovative Internet-based services that use the well-established aviation naming and coding conventions.

Through 2006, there was a significant increase in registrants - 2,175 at 31 December 31, compared with around 1,800 a year earlier. This was undoubtedly helped by the success of the agreement with Afilias to provide registry services, signed at the very end of 2005 and implemented through 2006. Ireland-based Afilias provides a full range of registry services, including those in support of the .org generic top-level domain (under contract to the Public Interest Registry), the .info generic top-level domain and a number of country domains. Alongside the change-over to Afilias, the .aero team has also increased the number of registrars. There are now 13 with the authority to accept .aero domain registrations, compared with less than half that number at the end of 2005.

At the end of 2005, the .aero team submitted a proposal to ICANN for the renewal of the agreement by which SITA sponsors the domain on behalf of the aviation community. As of the end of May, as this document was going to press, the original agreement with ICANN had been extended, with negotiations continuing in a positive and constructive manner.