North Carolina’s network of 72 publicly owned airports contribute $88 billion to the state’s economy, while supporting 427,000 jobs that generate $34 billion in personal income and return $4.8 billion in state and local tax revenues.
That’s according to a recently released report by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, “North Carolina: The State of Aviation.”
According to the report, general aviation airports have an economic input of $7.1 billion, while employing more than 30,600 people and generating more than $378 million in state and local taxes.
You can read the full report at NCDOT.gov/Divisions/Aviation/Documents/State-Of-Aviation.pdf, which includes a breakdown of each airport’s economic impact.
My state of North Carolina pays a fortune to ivory-towered folks at NC State each year to create this ridiculous report that has very little to do with reality. I about spit out my morning coffee when I saw the report on one local, dying airfield, Montgomery County, and the claim that it has created 10 jobs. It doesn’t even have an on-site manager and it lost its maintenance shop many years ago. I knew the owner and he left out of disgust over the lack of support from the county. Some of us have tried to get allowance from the county to build hangars there, at our cost, since they are always in short supply, but the county doesn’t even have the professionalism to return our replies. This laughable report uses a Keynesian formula that basically says that when one dollar is confiscated from a taxpayer and used for a bureaucrat’s pet project – at the urging of the crony airport works industry – it somehow magically leads to 5-6 more dollars out of thin air. You can not make this stuff up, but our government believes the lies its pays other bureaucrats and consultants to fabricate. I studied engineering in NC in the 70s, came back in 1996, ran one of the largest EAA chapters in the nation, was a member of the NC Airport Association but resigned out of disgust seeing how industry colludes with government to enrichen each other but make GA less affordable and more restrictive. The only solution is to end all government support for GA airports. Many will fail, which is good for taxpayers. But others will survive and aircraft owners will profit from real competition.