This thesis provides a linguistic analysis and classification of aviation abbreviations using a limited corpus of English aviation terms. The research covers 216 abbreviations that come from a few sources: Acronym Glossary by Federal Aviation Administration, List of Frequently Used EASA Abbreviations by European Union Aviation Safety Agency and All Aviation Abbreviation Dictionary issued by Flying in Europe Organization. The analysis of the collected abbreviations was carried out using a framework proposed by Lopez Rua (2006) and developed in Fabijanić, Malenica’s work (2013a, b). Abbreviations were divided into three broad categories – alphabetisms, acronyms and hybrid abbreviations, according to the set of specific parameters. The parameters include orthographic elements used in the formation of abbreviations such as initials, prefixes, numerals and syllables, and various types of orthographic changes that the elements of abbreviation undergo, such as metathesis, ellipsis, and addition. The results of the research reveal that the most common pattern of forming abbreviations in the aviation field is represented by alphabetisms in narrower sense - abbreviations that are pronounced letter-by-letter and contain initial letters of each word in a phrase, without omitting any constituent or undergoing an orthographic change.