The Christmas and New Year holiday travel season means big business for the nation’s airports. A report by N-C State and the Institute for Transportation Research and Education shows just how big aviation is in this state.
The economic impact of North Carolina’s nine commercial service airports is more than 20-billion dollars. A lot of the growth has come in the last few years after major construction projects at Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte Douglas International Airports. Bobby Walston is Deputy Director of Airports for the Division of Aviation in the state Department of Transportation.
Bobby Walston: "It certainly lets us know that what we know that aviation is very important to our state. It means jobs, and it certainly means significant contribution by way of our economy, to our state’s economy."
There are a total of 72 publicly-owned airports in the state supporting close to 109-thousand full and part-time jobs.