Measuring the economic impact of liberalization of international aviation on Hamburg airport

The paper describes a four-step modeling approach to estimating the impact of changes to the international aviation bilaterals on airport revenues and the income, employment and tourism effects for the local economy. The model is estimated on and applied to Hamburg airport and the State of Hamburg using a set of 10 representative markets that would have access to the German market. We find that Hamburg airport Would gain 149,000 new passengers of which 17,000 would be hubbing through the airport to other international destinations. The change in passenger and operations leads to a 6 percent increase in overall airport revenues, as well as increases in local output, investment and employment. Tourism impacts were estimated separately with 11,000 new tourists and 22 new jobs in the tourism industry. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.