Changes in Air Service Connectivity and Employment

Abstract

In this paper the relationship between air service connectivity and a subset of professional employment as defined by administrative and auxiliary workers for the fifty-nine largest metropolitan areas in the USA for the period 1978–88 is examined. The importance of airline service connectivity as an industrial location factor for company facilities is highlighted. Restructuring of the air service network and the emergence of the postderegulation hub-and-spoke system are also discussed. It is argued that connectivity affects, and is simultaneously affected by, administrative and auxiliary employment levels. Empirical findings suggest that changes in connectivity have a greater influence on administrative and auxiliary employment levels than changes in administrative and auxiliary employment have on connectivity.

Air Transportation and Regional Growth: Which Way Does the Causality Run?

“…Easy accessibility attracts firms and economic activity to a region and stimulates employment growth, even at established firms (Brueckner, 2003). Earlier studies and surveys clearly indicate that access to air transportation has an important effect on the locational decisions of many businesses (Debbage, 1999;Ivy et al, 1995;Ministry of Transport and Communication Finland, 2010). In particular, high-tech industries benefit from proximity to airports due to the importance of face-to-face interaction in their operations (Button and Taylor, 2000;Markusen et al, 1986).…”

Hub-and-spoke system in air transportation and its implications to regional economic development

“…Transport has long been seen as a strong positive influence on economic development (Bell and Feitelson, 1991;Button and Taylor, 2000;Debbage, 1999;Goetz, 1992;Irwin and Kasarda, 1991;Ivy et al, 1995;Van den Berg et al, 1996). The fact that a considerable proportion of airline passengers in the United States travel for business purposes also means a close relationship between business activity on the ground and airline networks in the skies.…”

Air Passenger Transport and Regional Development: Cause and Effect in Europe

“…Particularly the professional, service and technical (PST) management and high technology sectors seem related to air passenger services [3,10,35]. Also, the creative sector, wholesale and retail, and administrative and auxiliary employment have been subject to research [6,38,39]. In this paper, previous research has been extended by focusing on the European urban areas and using the methodology of Granger causality to discern causality in the relationship between air transport and employment.…”

“…Much research on this topic has been carried out for the United States of America (US) [1,2,3,4,5,6], but research elsewhere has been lacking. According to Dobruszkes et al [7], the main reason for this is the difficulty of finding homogeneous data in a multinational context.…”