Air terrorism, despite being one of the greatest threats to transport in the modern world, has not been defined in international law. The article presents the evolution of combating air terrorism by international law against the background of the changes taking place in the phenomenon itself. Fifty-five years after the adoption of the First Convention on Air Terrorism, we are witnessing the further development of this branch of law. The author of the text presents the acts of international law that are already in force, adopted under the auspices of the United Nations, along with the new ones adopted in Beijing and Montreal, which supplement the previous ones. He also tries to answer the question of the direction in which international law is heading in the field of combating air terrorism, and wonders what the development of this terrorism may be.