In an effort to quantify the contributions of business aviation to the European economy, the European Business Aviation Association (EBAA) commissioned the consultancy Oxford Economics to assess the significance and effects of business aviation in the region. The study concludes that the business aviation industry delivers substantial benefits not only to its clients, but also to local governments and communities.
Business aviation’s most prominent impact is in the facilitation of interaction between businesses. The report highlights the fact that business aviation supports Europe’s internal market by utilizing the region’s infrastructure of small airports more effectively than standard airlines, and by filling in the gaps left by scheduled network flights to major hubs. The study has found that passengers on business aircraft contributes nine times as much to gross domestic product as a passenger on scheduled flight. These “high-value” passengers are decision makers and executives who require face-to-face contact, which they deem crucial in business deals. And because 96% of city pairs (origin-destination) covered by business aviation do not have scheduled daily direct flights, executives and business leaders depend on business aviation for their travel requirements.
The Oxford study also shows the positive economic impact of business aviation on local economies. Firstly, the business aviation industry is a major employer throughout Europe, with estimates of over 164,000 workers. The industry has direct and indirect impacts from manufacturing, research and development, training services, hospitality to infrastructure investment and construction. For example, an order of new planes sustains 5,000 manufacturing jobs in Belfast. Also Farnborough airport in the UK directly employs over 1000 people, but has created an additional 4000 jobs in the local area as part of the airport’s supply chain. The report also highlights other positive overall effects of the business aviation industry in local economies: a highly trained workforce, the development of income generating “aviation clusters”, the staging of income and tourist generating aviation events such as airshows and exhibitions as well as the increased likelihood of businesses growing in areas due to their proximity to business aviation locations.
Europe’s recovery from the economic crisis will require many things – employment, growth and development chief among them. The business aviation industry feeds both ends of the spectrum. It helps bring business leaders together in order to make deals, it provides desperately needed jobs throughout Europe, and it has a positive economic effect in the localities where it is present. According to the CEO of EBAA, Fabio Gamba, “What this study clearly points out is that business aviation is playing a key role in facilitating Europe’s recovery. This importance should be recognised in policy formulation, with legislators developing regulations and mechanisms that bolster business aviation activity in order to further stimulate the growth of our region, rather than ignore it as it was evidenced with the European Commission’s proposed recast on slot allocation, or penalise it as the Italian government has done by introducing a double tax on owners and passengers, resulting in dismal traffic figures in the country.”
