NEC Luncheon ‘The Economic Impact of Civil Aviation in the US’ with W. Gavin Ekins, Economist, Office of Aviation Policy and Plans, Federal Aviation Administration

Date: Thursday, December 11th

Time: 12:00pm – 1:30pm US ET

Location: Group of Thirty Conference Center, 1001 Connecticut Ave NW, 2nd Floor Conference Room #1, Washington, DC 20036

The lockdowns associated with the 2020 pandemic drastically reduced the economic contribution of U.S. civil aviation from 4.9% of U.S. GDP in 2019 to 2.3% in 2020. However, U.S. civil aviation showed considerable resilience in the following two years, increase to 4.0% of U.S. GDP by the end of 2022. The upward trend in economic growth in the civil aviation sector suggests a robust recovery at the national level, but the recovery was unequal across individual states. Small states dependent on international tourism have struggled to recover from the 2020 pandemic by 2022 while Eastern Mountain states performed above long-run trends. A lag in the recovery of two segments of civil aviation, international tourism and aircraft manufacturing, are the primary reasons for states performing below their long-run contribution to U.S. GDP while air cargo is the reason for states performing above their long-run trend. This suggests possible structural changes in the distribution of civil-aviation’s economic contribution across U.S. states. 

Please Note: This is an in-person event. 

This location is near Farragut West and Farragut North metro stations. 

Please contact the NEC manager (manager@national-economists.org) with any questions.

About our speaker: 

Gavin Ekins is a PhD economist with the Federal Aviation Administration in the Office of Aviation Policy and Plans. He currently develops the Civil Aviation Economic Impact report for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) forecast for the FAA’s Aerospace Forecast. He has previously worked with the Joint Economic Committee in the U.S. Congress and the Tax Foundation as a research economist producing reports on International Trade and Taxation.