[Article] Study reveals airports vital to economic development

Victor

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2004/02/09/story133423.html

Study reveals airports vital to economic development
09/02/2004 - 5:03:22 pm

European airports play a key role in boosting regional accessibility and social expansion according to data released today.

They also drive tourism development and serve as national and regional economic motors, according to a report entitled 'the social and economic impact of airports in Europe.'

Key findings from the study include that total on-site employment at European airports was around 1.2m in 2001 creating some 950 on-site jobs per million passengers per annum.

For every on-site job, another 2.1 jobs are created indirectly or through induced effects in national economies.

Access to markets and external and international transport links are regarded as absolutely essential to enterprises making location decisions.

Regional airports are equally important to their local and national economies while failure to provide increases in airport capacity could cost between 2.5% and 3% of national or regional Gross Domestic Product respectively.

For the European Union as a whole, tourism accounts for 5% of total employment and Gross Domestic Product. The advent of low-cost carrier services is also accelerating the development of tourism in many places.

The study also revealed that the social and economic importance of air transport in Europe will grow with the enlargement of the European Union.

The study was undertaken by York Aviation, a specialist firm of air transport consultants for airports and government agencies.

ishmael whale

The York Aviation material really shows up how nutty our regional airport policy is. Bear in mind York sort of assume that the airport will actually handle a reasonable amount of traffic – they’re not saying that putting an airport on a foggy boggy hill will stimulate development. Of course we know this, the experience of Knock over twenty years confirms it and no amount of spin and wishful thinking from Knock Airport management can paper over their failure to stimulate regional development.

To put some perspective on this, when assessing the contribution airports make York suggest four categories

1. International hub airports such as London Heathrow with about 50 or 60 million passenger movements a year. They say “These airports are of such a scale and importance that their impact on the national economy should be assessed.” But as they serve more passengers per year than our national total, this concept does not apply to us.
2. International airports such as Manchester and Zurich with about 15 or 20 million passengers per year. According to York when assessing the economic benefits of these airports “The primary focus should be on the regional impact of these airports, although national and sub-regional/local effects may also be examined.” Dublin would fit into this group, and you can take it that ‘region’ in this context means Ireland.
3. Regional – such as Birmingham, Nice and Malaga, say something of the order of 7.5 million passenger movements. No Irish Airport fits into this category, but for completeness York say “The primary focus should be on the regional impact of the airports, although sub-regional/local effects may also be examined;”
4. Local – such as Cardiff and Newcastle. These are airports carrying maybe 3m to 1.5m passengers a year. Cork and Shannon would fit into this category. York do not expect any macro level benefits – “The focus should be on the sub-regional/local impacts of these airports.”
As we can see Knock, with its 250,000 passengers, doesn’t even register on this scale. Before anyone chips in with the inevitable “these things take time” remember that Knock has existed for nearly twenty years now, and its claim to be the fastest growing airport is based on just a couple of new services. (If you increase numbers from a small original figure you always get a misleading high percentage.) Also recall that Knock is the largest regional airport (or, as they optimistically put it, the fourth largest International airport) so the role of the others can be assessed in that light.
The likely ending of the Shannon stopover seems to mean that Shannon’s traffic may nearly half from about 2 million movements to about 1 million. The West coast is clearly ‘over-airported’. They need to rationalise. Have they the vision to see past their immediate horizons to do it? Doubtful.

BendiBus

The timing is interesting in light of last weeks decision re Charleroi & Ryanair.

Who commissioned the study? Not that it says anything terribly controversial.

Victor

Originally posted by BendiBus
Who commissioned the study? .

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?