General Aviation Means Business!

News & Information You’ll Want To Know In Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska & Iowa

by Yasmina Platt
Manager, AOPA Central Southwest Region

We all know that general aviation (or simply “GA” as we often call it) offers a uniquely efficient means of moving people and goods between communities that no other mode of transportation can. We also know that, in addition to being a fun recreational activity and providing tourism opportunities, it also creates jobs, trains the next generation of pilots, aids law enforcement, increases productivity, and provides life-saving services, among other things.

Through a network of over 5,200 public-use community airports and more than 14,000 privately owned landing facilities nationwide, GA forges links between thousands of businesses, their suppliers, and their customers. Only about 10 percent of the nation’s airports have commercial service, making general aviation an integral part of this country’s important transportation system.

General aviation fuels the economy:

• GA supplies $219 billion in total U.S. economic output.

• GA creates 1.1 million jobs across a broad range of disciplines, including flight crews, aircraft manufacturing and maintenance, avionics development and installation, flight instruction, airport operations, and support services.

• GA increases productivity, allowing business travelers to reach multiple destinations in a single day and conduct meetings and work while enroute.

• An estimated 65 percent of GA flights are conducted for business and public services, many of which are located in or need access to smaller communities that do not have airline service.

General aviation unites the nation:

• GA connects 170 million passengers each year to thousands of cities and towns.

• GA brings the necessities of life to all communities, many of which are isolated with no other reliable access to the outside world.

Every citizen benefits from general aviation:

• GA provides emergency medical flights through medevac operations and volunteers who fly patients to distant locations for specialized treatment.

• GA includes airborne search-and-rescue, disaster relief, firefighting, emergency evacuation, and law enforcement activities.

• GA is critical to agriculture, fishing, pest control, forestry, and wildlife management.

• GA is vital to monitoring and maintaining infrastructure, including oil, water, and gas pipelines, as well as electrical and telephone lines.

• GA informs the public through airborne news, traffic, and weather reporting.

• GA initially trains and provides experience, developing jobs for the majority of new airline pilots.

While I’m preaching to the choir because most of us know a lot of these facts, we need to make sure the public and decision-makers know this information as well.

I would like to encourage you to set a simple goal for yourself: schedule a meeting with your mayor, your city council member, your county commissioner, your legislators (state and/or federal), or your chamber of commerce, to educate them about the importance of general aviation. If you want to be really ambitious, you can also organize an informational event and invite all those folks in addition to the public, and members of your local church, Rotary Club, and book club.

But, don’t worry; you’re not alone! We have a lot of resources to help you at AOPA (like this article) and you can always send me an email and I can send you some examples of PowerPoints, etc.

The first resource I want to mention is our regional page: www.aopa.org/central-southwest-rm. We have a lot of good information on there, but for this challenge and topic, your best bet is going to be the blog titled “Importance of GA To Your State and Individual Airport.” It includes a one-pager and links to economic impact studies for each of the states in the Central Southwest Region (to include Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa), and most of those studies also include information about each of the airports in the state’s airport system plan.

Good luck and please share your knowledge of GA with others! It’s definitely one of the better ways to share the multiple benefits of our wonderful industry and keep airports open!

I look forward to hearing from you!

@AOPACentralSW
yasmina.platt@aopa.org

This entry was posted in AOPA Regional Report, Columns, Columns, October/November 2015 and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

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