NDAEIS Home – 2025 North Dakota Aviation

Project Overview

The 2025 North Dakota Aviation Economic Impact Study (NDAEIS) is an update to the 2015 NDAEIS and will be developed in concurrence with the 2025 North Dakota State Aviation System Plan (2025 NDSASP). The 2025 NDAEIS documents the economic contributions of individual airports and that of the state’s 89 public-use airports as a whole. This study conveys the airport system’s role as a driver for economic and social benefits for residents, visitors, businesses, and industries. The findings of the 2025 NDAEIS will quantify the economic impact of the aviation system and show the results of how investments in North Dakota’s airports have impacted the contributions. The study will also provide essential tools and resources to help communities demonstrate the value of their aviation facilities to their constituents, including the qualitative aspects of aviation in the community.

The 2025 NDAEIS will assess economic impacts generated from on-airport activity, including airport administration, airport tenant, and construction activity, as well as the impact of visitors traveling to North Dakota via commercial service and general aviation airports and aircraft. In addition, the 2025 NDAEIS will estimate tax revenues generated from aviation activity and evaluate supplemental economic benefits derived from the University of North Dakota’s School of Aerospace Sciences, aircraft and aerospace manufacturing, air force bases, and more.

Key Terminology

Economic impact studies are incredibly helpful tools to demonstrate the value of aviation. These studies utilize several key terms that may be unfamiliar to audiences who are new to economic impact analyses. Some of the key terms used in the 2025 NDAEIS are summarized here.

Measure of Economic Impact

Jobs

Perhaps the most easily understood measure of economic impact, the jobs measure indicates the total number of people employed as a result of aviation, both full-time and part-time.

Earnings

Earnings, which may also be referred to as “payroll” or “labor income” measures the total employment compensation, including wages and benefits, of those employed.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

GDP measures the dollar value of final goods and services produced locally because of economic activity, not including the value of intermediate goods and services used to produce the final goods and services

Output

Output measures total expenditures associated with airport administration, capital projects, tenant sales of goods and services, as well as visitor spending in North Dakota’s hospitality related sectors.

Economic Impact Categories

Economic impact categories describe the different levels of impacts that occur as money moves through the economic cycle. These terms are defined here.

Direct Impacts

The initial impacts occurring both on-and off-airports, involving the payroll, expenditures, and capital improvements of airports and tenants are considered direct impacts. This also includes the spending by commercial and general aviation visitors.

Multiplier Impacts

There are two distinct impacts that occur within the broader “multiplier impacts” term. The first is “induced impacts” which occur when a portion of direct revenues is used to purchase goods and services from other businesses within a defined region. These impacts are sometimes referred to as “supplier sales.” The second is “indirect impacts”, sometimes referred to as “income respending” and occur when employees re-spend their income earned in the defined region as a part of direct and indirect impacts.

Total Impacts

Total impacts are simply the sum of the direct and multiplier impacts (induced and indirect).