Some notable early exceptions include Brueckner (2003), Button et al. 2 In truth, despite the policy enthusiasm, there is relatively little evidence on whether the opening of airports or expansion of airport capacity really stimulates economic development in a causal sense. However, there have been airport failures.

In these settings, airports are often built and expanded with the explicit aim of improving connections to peripheral areas, stimulating economic activity in these areas and reducing inter-area disparities ( World Bank, 2013). The fixed costs of airports are also relatively low compared with road and rail infrastructure spanning large distances. In large developing economies with poorly established land transport, the time savings from expanding the airport network are clearly potentially large. Airport construction or expansion is seen as a policy lever to boost cities, regions and national economies, and an inadequate airline service is an obstacle to local economic development. But in addition to their role in facilitating this faster leisure travel, business travel and trade, airports are also large local employers, with local workers directly and indirectly involved in supporting airport operations ( Hart and McCann, 2000 Brueckner, 2003).ДЇor these reasons, expansion of air transport capacity is generally regarded as a pre-requisite for economic growth in a modern economy. As with all transport, the fundamental value of air travel and airports is in saving time. Measured in terms of freight tonne kilometres, air freight is 2.5 times more important for trade in goods than marine freight, 1 moving around 16.5 billion freight tonne kilometres per month in 2014. International air passengers travelled around 320 billion kilometres per month in 2014, domestic passengers around 180 billion kilometres. Air transport is, self-evidently, an important facilitator of the movement of goods and people in and between countries across the globe.

Airport facilitator x