Build Airport Capacity or Manage Flight Demand? How Regional Planners Can Lead American Aviation Into a New Frontier of Demand Management

Can US Metropolitan Areas Use Large Commercial Airports as Tools to Bolster Regional Economic Growth?

“…The Airport as a ''Growth Engine'' Cities and regional government entities (counties or port authorities) often describe their local airport as a region's growth engine (Green 2007;Bilotkach 2015), regardless of its size and degree of economic impact. The pervasiveness of growth-oriented agendas helps understand the optimistic view that many cities and regions' governments hold regarding the economic effects of their airports (Ryerson and Woodburn 2014). The fact that airport owners and local governments make claims that their local airport is a growth engine, whatever its size, suggests that the meaning of the phrase varies considerably.…”

“…Local governments produce and use several categories of documents to defend and support the airport-based economic development strategies. Federal legislation requires entities governing airports to prepare airport master plans to receive federal funding, and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for major projects to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA; Ryerson and Woodburn 2014). In addition to these mandatory documents, local governments often commission consulting firms to evaluate the economic impacts of their airports and in particular those of capacity expansion projects.…”

“…The growth agenda that the FAA pursues at the US level is consistent with local progrowth agendas regarding airports, as seen above. Consistently with this growth agenda, the EIS section on economic development impacts often seems to convey an optimistic view of the economic consequences of airport capacity expansion (Ryerson and Woodburn 2014). The EIS for Washington Dulles' capacity expansion, for instance, boasts that the project will ''generate new employment'' and ''attract new industry to the region'' (FAA 2005).…”

“…Full-length runway additions are the most significant investments to add to airport capacity (Altshuler and Luberoff 2003). Such investments have been increasingly frequent among major US airports: of the top thirty-five airports by flights, nineteen airports expanded or started to plan expanding their runway capacity (with either new runways or extensions) between 2000 and 2014 (Ryerson and Woodburn 2014). While these investments in additional capacity support future growth, one of their main goals is to reduce delays, thus improving the quality of air service (Cohen and Coughlin 2003).…”

“…Most studies by economists and geographers take an aggregate, systemwide look at aviation and economic development. However, the practice of planning for airport investments and air service often relies on case-by-case evidence from other airports, because such large projects are so contextual that general lessons are not appropriate (Ryerson and Woodburn 2014). The tension between large cross-sectional models and the idiosyncratic character of airports and metropolitan areas remains an obstacle to investigate how regions can use their airports for enhancing economic development.…”