The geography of air passenger volume and local employment patterns by US metropolitan core area: 1973–1996

The purpose of this paper is to determine if a statistically significant relationship exists between administrative and auxiliary employment levels and air passenger volume for the top 50 urban-airport complexes in the United States from 1973 to 1996. The goal of this paper is a fairly modest one — to refine and expand the current literature's focus by conducting a broader investigation of the links that exist between air passenger volume and employment levels within local economies. Based on data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the US Census Bureau County Business Patterns, the major findings of this paper were that the correlation between administrative and auxiliary employment and enplaned passenger volume over time are statistically significant at the 1% level.