II.1. The role of the STATE-OF-ART REPORT in the airLED project

II.1. The role of the STATE-OF-ART REPORT in the airLED project

There is a massive amount of literature on the subject that mostly aims at quantifying the economic impacts. However, there is no satisfying model that aims at analysing various aspects of and interests linked to spatial and economic development. From a local authority perspective, knowing the scope of investments and financial frames is useful as it helps them to justify their involvement. However, in order to know how to best accompany development processes, a qualitative analysis is more useful than a quantitative one.

Integrated economic development linked to airports poses a major challenge. Ambition to achieve this calls for the functional division of tasks and scope of responsibility between cities and settlements in the vicinity of airports, and also the strengthened cooperation between various stakeholders, such as municipalities, development agencies and private companies.

The vision behind airLED project builds on the ongoing policy reflection with regards to the ‘Airport City’ concept, advocating the importance of appropriately planned airport-area development. In the frame of this concept, an Airport City is characterised by all the functions of a modern metropolitan centre being located on and immediately around major airport sites. It may entail arterial spines and clusters of aviation-linked and also other businesses with systematically planned transport connections radiating outwards up to 20 km from the airport.

The airLED project focuses on the economic development of catchment areas around airports, taking into account the direct, indirect and induced impacts of airport activities (both existing or expanding airports), all in the frame of polycentric territorial cooperation and governance. This means that the project aims primarily at enhancing the cooperation between public authorities and bodies concerned and having a stake in the economic development of areas surrounding a given airport. The project partner expressed this goal in the Application Form as follows:

“The purpose of …'Regional and EU state-of-art' … is to set the scene by gaining deeper insight into European trends as regards Airport City development…(to achieve this it is needed) Desk research on sites with 'Airport City' characteristics, also synthesise outcome of EU reflections on project topics so far, utilising the knowledge and experience of associated partner such as ARC. Overview on what has been achieved in Europe."⁷

This study aims to present and provide an evaluation of the situation in the European airport market, taking stock of the new tendencies, the new challenges airports and surrounding regions face and the possible answers to these challenges.

The regional airports have a special status in the European air traffic. They are not big enough to be unavoidable but on the other hand they are big enough to influence their narrower and broader regions: both in terms of social and economic development. Therefore is it indispensable to study the solutions – with both good or bad results – of European regional airports, whether these answers are efficient or whether it is necessary to find new solutions.

On the basis of some European examples every project partner of airLED is able to situate their individual position in Central Europe and to create a vision on the future development of their airport catchment areas. The study tries to give some general methodological approach for investigating an individual situation hence they are different from airport region to airport region, with all their unique characteristics and similarities as well.

II.2. Key output requirements and scope of the State-of-Art Report

• 
  geographical situation of regional airports
  
• 
  economic situation of regional airports (as business units)
  
• 
  possible special role of regional airports in a liberalized air traffic market
  
• 
  relations between efficient regional airports and the development of their catchment areas
  

To achieve these goals statistical data of the European Union, annual reports of airports and maps showing the geographical situation of selected airports, their linkage to the central business district of the city and infrastructure and businesses close to the airport were used. The aim was to demonstrate relations between passenger and freight movements, issues of connectivity, the revenue structure and profitability of airports also because airports are not only well concentrated points of economic activity but – in a certain scale – own assets of the municipality they belong to.

In the study there were used different statistical databases (Eurostat, ACI etc.), a large number of publications appeared in the last decades (mainly on internet). On this basis we elaborated several maps and tables in order to show the interrelations between airport performance and it’s socio-economic background (population, GDP, structure of economy, distance to CBD etc.) In this analysis we used the passenger and freight transport data of around 70-75 airports and their NUTS3 level indicators depending the geographical location of each airport⁸. In some cases there are more than one airport in one NUTS3 level region, in this cases we merged the same socio-economic indicator to all airports of the region. We didn’t aggregate the traffic data of these airports because they could be of different characteristics (airport city or not, large passenger hub or mainly cargo base).

III. AIRPORTS AND AIRPORT REGIONS IN EUROPE