Definition
All civil aviation operations other than scheduled air services and non-scheduled air transport operations for hire or reward.
Plain English
Civilian flying that is not airline service and not paid passenger or cargo charters. It covers everything else civilians do with aircraft -- training, personal travel, business flights flown by the owner, sightseeing for the pilot's own purpose, and similar activities.
Context Anchor
Seen in international aviation references, rules, statistics, and glossary entries where ICAO separates types of civil flying.
Derivation
General comes from a word meaning broad or common, and aviation means flight by aircraft. Together, the phrase points to the broad category of flying outside airline-style transport.
Why Pilots Care
Determines which set of rules, training standards, and operational limits apply to the flight.
Intuition Check
Do not read general as meaning vague or unimportant. Here it names a specific category of civil flying: non-airline, non-paid-transport aviation.
Example Sentence 1
Under the ICAO definition, a pilot flying their own aircraft on a personal trip is conducting a general aviation operation.
Example Sentence 2
A company aircraft carrying only employees on company business counts as general aviation under ICAO definitions.