An Analysis of the Impact of Air Transport Sector to Economic Development in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper describes the significance and the catalytic nature of air transport/aviation sector for the nation and global economic development through job creation, tourism and facilitation of global trade. The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of air transport to economic development via-income generation, trade and other social opportunities to Nigeria. The air transport sector supports Gross Domestic Product and the employment of Nigerians through four different routes: direct route, indirect route, induced route and catalytic route. Airlines contribute over NGN58 billion to the economy of country and support 61,000 jobs in Nigeria. Furthermore, air freight may only account for 0.5% of the tonnage of global trade with the rest of the world and in value terms it makes up around 34.6% of the total freights.