This section offers an overview of the basic measures of air service and socioeconomic data that are most relevant to understanding and quantifying the relationship between the two concepts. It includes the key data items, definitions of concepts, and a list of sources for the information. Many airports may already have the air service metrics, and many stakeholder organizations may already have the socioeconomic data. Putting them together will enable the needed analyses. However, some caution is necessary: the two kinds of data likely will not match each other in geographic coverage.

This section includes 14 case studies of different airport regions. The case studies reflect commercial service airports of all sizes and service patterns (those with domestic service only and those with international flights) and regions with different economic strengths. Two case studies feature operations from air cargo and freight carriers.

Finally, the research team offers some general observations drawn from those case studies.