Airport Jobs and Spinoff Effects

The full scope of your airport’s economic contribution includes both the activities directly supported by your airport and the spinoff effects (also called multiplier effects) that broaden those impacts as money is further circulated through your region. Prior sections of this toolkit (My Airport as a Job Center and My Airport Is Not an Island) have introduced the sources of direct airport impacts and jobs, including on-airport employment as well as off-airport employment supported by air cargo, business travel, and visitor spending. Spinoff effects refer to the additional business activity derived from orders to suppliers and spending of worker income. Broadening the lens on economic impacts effectively increases the spectrum of jobs that can be associated with your airport, as is illustrated in the diagram below. For example, a FBO may employ ten people to maintain and undertake small repairs for GA aircraft at an airport. This FBO is in turn supported by supplier businesses located off-airport (e.g. a plastic manufacturer) that employ additional people. A portion of the business sales of the plastics company and a portion of wages earned by its workers are due to the business generated by the FBO. Moreover, both the people employed at the FBO and people working at the plastics company spend some portions of their wages on local consumer goods, thus supporting yet another set of jobs. More information on how to quantitatively estimate the relationship between direct and spinoff jobs supported by airports is provided under the Take Action section: The Value of my Airport.