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In February 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers released their report on GA contribution to the US Economy. The economic impact of the general aviation industry was measured in terms of employment, labor income, output, and value-added. 2018 was the most recent year for which full, consistent national and state level data was available.
GA directly employed 273,500 full and part-time workers. Including indirect, induced and enabled impacts GA supported 1.2 million jobs and $247 billion in output.
GA generated $77 billion in labor income and contributed $128 billion to US gross domestic product (GDP). At a national level, each direct job in GA supported 3.3 jobs elsewhere in the economy.
References: “Contribution of General Aviation to the US Economy in 2018,” PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, February 2020.
In 2018, total General Aviation flight hours were 25.5 million. PricewaterhouseCoopers divided GA flight hours into four categories: Personal, Business without a Paid Crew; Business with a Paid Professional Crew and Other.
Personal: Included operation of GA aircraft for personal and recreational reasons. The pilots of personal-use aircraft are typically the owner and PWC assumed that owners tie-down their aircraft rather than rent hangar space (which under estimates the economic impact of personal-use GA aircraft because many owners rent hangar space). About 7.7 million or 30% of GA flight hours were for personal flight.
Business without Paid Crew: Typically flown by the owner of the aircraft who is not paid for flight operations. It’s assumed that owners rent space in a shared hangar and pay business insurance rates on the aircraft.
Business with Paid Professional Crew: Owners of such aircraft are assumed by PWC to rent a hangar, pay a lower business insurance rate, and hire professional pilot and flight crew. Air taxi and air medical services are assumed to have this cost profile. About 31% or 7.8 million GA hours were for business purposes. Business-use with a paid crew accounts for the majority (79%) of turboprop and jet-powered airplane hours.
Other: Included flight instruction, aerial applications in agriculture and other industries, aerial observation, and sight-seeing. It’s assumed “other-use” aircraft operate with a paid pilot but no paid crew. This large grouping included about 10 million hours or 39% of all GA flight hours. And, represented the majority (61%) of flight hours for rotorcraft.
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, “Contributions of General Aviation to the US Economy in 2018,” PWC, Published 2020, page 6.
Table 1: GA Hours by Aircraft Type and Reason in 2018
Personal
Bus. w/o Paid Crew
Bus. w/ Paid Crew
Other
Hours
Piston Airplanes
5,790
1,103
551
6,342
13,786
Turboprop
219
192
1,176
1,149
2,736
Jet-Powered
459
230
3,582
321
4,592
Helicopters
88
29
847
1,929
2,922
Experimental
1,071
67
13
187
1,339
Other
77
29
1
54
131
Total
7,704
1,649
6,171
9,982
25,506
PricewaterhouseCoopers was engaged by the general aviation industry trade associations to help quantify the contribution of GA to the United States economy. PWC defined General Aviation as the manufacture and operation of any type of aircraft issued an airworthiness certificate by the FAA, excluding military operations and scheduled commercial airlines.
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In 2018, total General Aviation flight hours were 25.5 million (25,500,000). Piston-engine flight hours were over 15 million hours or 59% of the total GA flight hours.
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, “Contributions of General Aviation to the US Economy in 2018,” PWC, Published 2020, page 6.
PricewaterhouseCoopers was engaged by the general aviation industry trade associations to help quantify the contribution of GA to the United States economy. PWC defined General Aviation as the manufacture and operation of any type of aircraft issued an airworthiness certificate by the FAA, excluding military operations and scheduled commercial airlines.
Table 1. Hours by Aircraft Type
Description
Hours
Percent
Single-Engine Piston
12,092,000
47%
Twin-Engine Piston
1,694,000
7%
Turboprop
2,736,000
11%
Jet-Powered
4,592,000
18%
Helicopters
2,922,000
11%
Experimental
1,339,000
5%
Other
131,000
1%
Total
25,506,000
100%
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Over the next several weeks, we’ll blog a few factoids from the PricewaterhouseCoopers General Aviation report that was released in early 2020. Let’s start with, how many GA aircraft are there in the US? Answer: In 2018, the total GA fleet size was 211,743 aircraft. More than 173,000 had piston engine propulsion which represented 82% of the GA fleet.
TABLE 1. US General Aviation Fleet Size by Type Aircraft, 2018
Single-Engine Piston
130,180
61%
Twin-Engine Piston
12,860
6%
Turboprop
9,924
5%
Jet-Powered
14,595
7%
Helicopters
9,988
5%
Experimental
30,084
14%
Other
4,112
2%
Total
211,743
100%
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, “Contributions of General Aviation to the US Economy in 2018,” PWC, Published 2020, page 6.
PricewaterhouseCoopers was engaged by the general aviation industry trade associations to help quantify the contribution of GA to the United States economy. PWC defined General Aviation as the manufacture and operation of any type of aircraft issued an airworthiness certificate by the FAA, excluding military operations and scheduled commercial airlines.
Copyright 2020 wikiWings LLC, All rights reserved Connecting Aviators® and related marks and logos are property of wikiWings®