Abstract
Meanwhile it is generally acknowledged that accessibility belongs to major factors of economic attractiveness of metropolitan areas, other territories and peripheral regions. The aviation industry in general and airports’ activities in particular contribute considerably to the improvement of regional accessibility. For some remote regions the airports are the only gateway to bigger hubs. However, due to the increasing competition in the aviation sector the airports and especially regional airports in Europe face structural and operational challenges nowadays. According to the report of the EU Commission: “The Future of the Transport Industry†the number of loss making small and regional airports in Europe is constantly growing. On the other hand the regional airports might crucial role in boosting economic development and entrepreneurship growth in regions. In this context, it is very urgent for regional airports themselves, as well as for regional policy makers, business and other relevant stakeholders to recognize the role of regional airports on the economic growth in their regions. As a response, this paper addresses to the evaluation and assessment of potential effects of regional airports on economic and entrepreneurship growth in their regions.
Highlights
The transport sector, in direct and indirect meaning, is one of the main driving forces of European and global economies (EC, 2015a)
A number of scientific research studies and empirical evidences are available nowadays that relate to such subjects as: logistics’ clusters (e.g., Rivera & Sheffi 2012; Wang, 2015; Juchelka & Brenienek, 2016), airport’s operational environment and their impact on the regional development (e.g. Malina et al, 2007, Braun et al, 2010; Halpern & Brathen, 2011), it might be stated that much less attention has been paid to regional airports so far and the earlier studies have been focusing mostly on airport-hubs or metropolitan areas, whereas the perspective of regional airports and their potential impact on their region in terms of economic and entrepreneurship development has been studied less thoroughly (Mukkala & Tervo, 2012)
2016 Volume 3 Number 3 (March) factors, i.e. Resource-Based View (RBV) of Prahalad & Hamel (1990) as well as innovation and entrepreneurship growth of Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010). As it has been mentioned before, due to the fact that the causality discussion of the impact relationship between airports’ operation and regional growth still remains open, the author identifies here two main groups of the growth enhancers: (1) perspective of regional development, by which regional airports may be considered as an object of regional economic growth where economic development in a region will boost the demand for the air transportation services and stimulate an airport’s growth; and (2) regional airport’s perspective, whereby regional airports act as a subject of regional development, e.g. airport’s activities may stimulate economic and entrepreneurship growth in its region
Summary
The transport sector, in direct and indirect meaning, is one of the main driving forces of European and global economies (EC, 2015a). Air transport is considered as one of the main driving forces for the trade of innovative manufactures worldwide (IATA, 2015) and as an enhancer of the economic potential of a region (Goetz, 1992; Alkaabi & Debbage 2007; Debbage & Delk 2001). It is economic and regional development that might lead to the growing demand for transportation services, and the direct linkage between air transportation and economic growth does really exist, the causation is not completely clear (Button et al 2010). Halpern & Bråthen (2011) pointed that on the one hand the airports might act as primary facilitators for the economic and regional growth, providing accessibility and improving supply side components; on the other hand, it might be economic development (here: demand side) that determines demand and growth of transport services. Halpern & Bråthen further argue that the question if the demand or the supply in this context have the stronger effect
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