Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A US airport advocacy group (USA-BIAS) has used a similar methodology to
claim that daily service to a new US gateway from London would add at least US$268
million to the local US economy in the first year (Creedy, 1991). These estimates
include stimulation of exports and foreign investment of US$139 million, in addi-
tion to the impacts derived using the FAA methodology. The Airports Council Inter-
national (Europe) reports that between 350 and 1500 jobs are created at an airport site
per million passengers per annum (mppa), the total employment being between 920
and 5130 per mppa (ACI, 1998). Again, the majority of the employment is associ-
ated with the indirect and induced effect due to the need for services ranging from
taxi drivers to utilities. There is a clear difference between the total economic impact
around small airports, where many of the services cannot be provided locally, and
the major gateways and their associated regions. In the latter case, multipliers between
1.7 and 2.5 may be justified. Some analysts also add access-sensitive businesses to
the indirect and induced employment estimates. This is similar to estimating the
stimulation effect discussed below. Thus, it has been estimated that the Chicago air-
port system adds between 420,000 and 510,000 jobs to the local economy, and that
an international passenger adds US$2,310 - over five times that of a domestic con-
necting passenger (Booz-Allen and Hamilton, 1998).
Social benefits
There is a general acceptance that there is a positive, mutually supportive relationship
between aviation and the economy; at the same time, there is a general feeling that
aviation is socially divisive. However, in many ways aviation allows similar social ben-
efits to those derived from other transport modes. Moreover, it is the only mode that
can provide these over long distances. Social benefits are self-evident when aviation
is the only way to respond to disaster relief, medical evacuation, law enforcement or
the protection of the environment (FAA, 1978). So are some of the other leisure ben-
efits that are claimed by the FAA (FAA, 1978). Another example of a potential benefit
to society, over and above the benefits to the individual, is that the world is becom-
ing a global village in which people from different countries are made to feel like
neighbours. Tourism has become a real force for peace in the world (Edgell, 1990).
This type of intercultural tourism can only be accomplished, in practice, by air and
only if it is conducted to ethical principles. British Airways (BA) has taken a lead in
this (British Airways, 1996), and the pressure group Tourism Concern has issued a
checklist to protect the interests of the local people (www.tourismconcern.org.uk).
The social advantages of aviation are more readily apparent in developing coun-
tries, in promoting cultural unity within a country and allowing cultural, ethnic and
educational links with the industrialized world. The direct benefits from the support
of industrial and social service activities are readily apparent in low-density situa-
tions and in the pre-industrial phase of an economy. However, it is perhaps the less
direct benefits flowing from the transfer of technology that have the greater benefi-
cial effect on a developing economy. The transfer process can be formalized as occur-
ring at four levels of sophistication: appropriating, disseminating, utilizing knowledge
and ongoing and interactive communication (Williams and Gibson, 1990). It would
be very difficult to provide this latter most effective form of technology transfer
without international aviation.
