Project

Virginia's Airport System Economic Impact Study

EDR Group (now EBP), under subcontract to SH&E, for the Virginia Department of Aviation

The Virginia Department of Aviation (DOAV) undertook this statewide economic impact study to identify the economic benefits associated with nine commercial service and 57 general aviation airports that serve communities throughout Virginia. This study focuses on the economic benefits created by Virginia’s airports, the visitors who travel through the airports and the in-state companies that rely on the airports to support and conduct their business.

EDR Group assessed the economic impact and community benefits for commercial and general aviation airports throughout the Commonwealth, covering commercial and general aviation travelers, airport businesses, and aviation-dependent businesses. In part, this study is a follow-up to the 2004 economic impact study (also conducted by EDR Group), with two major differences. First, the 2010 study was developed in coordination with the multi-modal analysis of VDOT’s Six-Year Investment Plan that was recently completed by EDR Group. In that study, EDR Group applied TREDIS to fully evaluate the benefits of Six-Year Plan investments in the state's highways, ports, airports, rail and transit systems. Secondly, at the conclusion of the analysis EDR Group provided VDOT with a calibrated model (coordinated with TREDIS) of the public use airport system and each airport. The aviation model will allow the Department to develop “desktop” analyses of future changes of landside and airside changes that occur by airport so that systemwide and airport-specific estimates of aviation system economic impacts remain current, and allow VDOT to estimate economic impacts of “what-if” hypothetical scenarios. These capabilities will increase the ability of DOAV to communicate the value of aviation across the Commonwealth and to provide support to individual airports.

report cover