Getting Started

How Do I Navigate This Website?

ACRP WebResource 12 provides options. As with a traditional ACRP report, you can move stepwise through the material, from background information on air service and regional economic activity to suggestions for improving your communications with regional audiences.  You can also skip around topics. You can read case studies to see how air service and economic activity are related in different regions.

Understanding

Understanding Air Service and Regional Economic Activity

This section outlines the fundamentals: airport catchment areas and comparisons to standard statistical areas, basic metrics of air service and economic activity (and sources of those data), and ways to understand the economic strength of the region served by the airport. This section provides an overview of how air service contributes to a region’s quality of life. It explains how commercial air service contributes to regional economic activity—how different industry sectors rely on aviation as part of their operations.

Measuring

Measuring Air Service and Regional Economic Activity

This section addresses questions such as: what data are used to show changes in air service and the national economy, and what sectors of the economy are especially dependent or reliant upon commercial air service.

Communicating

Communicating the Airport’s Contributions to the Regional Economy

This section addresses issues such as the organizations that represent businesses and economic development interests and how their goals and measures of effectiveness complement but do not necessarily coincide with airports’ goals and performance metrics. How can airports bridge that gap?

The technical report describes in detail the analyses of changes in air service and economic activity that produced the research team’s categorization of airports and economies, along with the rationales for excluding some airports.