- [Narrator] General aviation airports
have a positive economic impact on their local communities.
But until now, the hundreds of individual airports in Texas
had a difficult time determining
just what that economic impact really is.
That's why researchers have developed
a special web-based tool that can be accessed anytime,
showing just how important airport activities are
to the region.
- General aviation airports, smaller airports,
one of their biggest challenges is community education
and raising the positive image of the airport
in the community.
One of the best ways to do that
is to demonstrate the positive economic impact
that the airport has on the local community.
- They really are lifelines
to the larger business community
in ways that we weren't able to see before private planes.
Visitors are able to fly into GA airports
and take advantage of the hotels, restaurants,
local community events,
and so, it really is a way for small communities
to be connected to the state and the nation
in ways that they may not be able to otherwise.
- So every few years, just as a lot of other states do,
we come out with an economic impact study
that looks at the direct, indirect,
and induced economic impacts of airports
throughout the entire system,
the state of Texas' system.
But that's done every four or five years,
and it's very cumbersome to update:
it's expensive, it's a heavy time commitment,
and it's not something that can be done
on a continuous basis.
But we all know that things are happening
at airports every day,
and that's changing the economic impact of those airports
and collectively the economic impact
of Texas' Aviation System.
So we worked with TTI to develop a dynamic tool,
a web-based tool,
that allows us to continuously be assessing
and looking at the economic impact of individual airports
and then the state as a whole.
- So there's three types of data
that we look for to be input:
data related to the airport itself,
the number of jobs at the airport,
meaning airport administration,
and then visitor information,
that means the number
of itinerant operations for general aviation airports
and also in enplanements
for the commercial service airports.
And then also information related
to the businesses on the airport.
- [Kaity] The tool is located online and you can find it
through TxDOT aviation's website, as well.
You can see how visitor increases, how tenant changes,
how more employees at the airport
might have a larger impact on the community as a whole,
and this calculator is really able
to quantify that and give that benefit a number.
- We're a municipally owned airport
so anytime we want to spend money,
I need to really take it to the city council
and get approval through the city council.
Obviously, spending tax dollars
and the desire to spend tax dollars wisely,
we would want to be able to forecast
what the economic benefits,
what that would be.
- [Narrator] For more information
and to find the publications for this project,
please visit the TxDOT Research Library
at the link shown below.