Jan. 11—HENDERSON — Analysts affiliated with N.C. State University estimate that the Henderson-Oxford Airport generated about $15 million in economic impact for the state in 2021, the N.C. Department of Transportation says.
The figure appears in the "State of Aviation" report DOT issues every other year to help policymakers gauge the economic impact of North Carolina's 72 public airports.
Ten of those airfields accommodate airlines, and the rest are "general aviation" facilities that cater to private aircraft. All told, their estimated economic impact was $72.3 billion, with the 10 airline-centric fields accounting for all but about $6.2 billion of that.
DOT had N.C. State's Institute for Transportation Research and Education go through data from the airports and estimate the financial impact of travel, on-field services, construction and maintenance work and the jobs they support directly or indirectly.
The general aviation category includes everything from small, single-runway strips like Henderson- Oxford up to facilities like Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem, which was once the main base of operations for a home-grown airline.
Henderson- Oxford is on the smaller end of their economic-impact spectrum, but is nonetheless well ahead of some counterparts Down East and in the south-central Piedmont. The analysts believe it supports about 60 jobs, accounting for about $4.1 million in personal income, and generating about $723,000 in tax revenue for state and local governments.
Smith Reynolds — in its 1970s heyday the home of Winston-Salem-based Piedmont Airlines — represented the upper end of the spectrum for the general aviation fields. The N.C. State analysts reckoned that it generated $894.2 million of activity in 2021 — more than four of the airports with airline service — and supported 3,160 jobs.
Corporate mergers erased Piedmont, and airlines stopped serving Smith Reynolds at the turn of the millennium, but these days it still hosts such things as a company that specializes in the upkeep of airplane propeller blades and helicopter main rotor blades and hubs.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Hyde County airport, on the western shore of Pamlico Sound, generated about $2.1 million in economic activity and supported five jobs.
Henderson- Oxford isn't the only general aviation field in the region, sharing it with the Triangle North Executive Airport on the outskirts of Louisburg.
Triangle North's estimated economic impact in 2021 was right around $28 million. It supported 220 jobs and generated a little less than $2 million in state and local tax revenue.
North Carolina's state's two largest civilian airports, Charlotte Douglas International and Raleigh-Durham International, generated about $31.8 billion and $17.0 billion in economic impact, according to the estimates.
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