Jackson Free Press

JACKSON — The Jackson Municipal Airport Authority's total monetary impact in 2016 on the five surrounding counties—Hinds, Rankin, Madison, Simpson and Copiah—is valued at $1.19 billion, a Jackson State University study found.

When auxiliary business activity is included, that impact increases to $1.34 billion, with an output impact of $722 million. The airport's economic impact is concentrated very locally.

"We notice a relatively small difference between the Tri-County, Five-County and State level economic impacts, suggesting that the JMAA economic impact is more concentrated locally than on a statewide basis," the report says.

Control of the airport led to a contentious legislative debate and ultimately a bill pushed through by the Republican majority to take over control of the JMAA board with a regional-board approach in 2016. That bill is not law, however, due to a legal challenge likely to drag on more several more months. In the meantime, Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba recommended and the City Council confirmed two JMAA board members last week.

The report shows that the airport has a $1.187 billion economic impact on the tri-county area of Hinds, Rankin and Madison counties alone. The airport's economic output and tax contributed to the tri-county area increased in 2016 to the highest levels JMAA has seen since 2013.

Despite the airport's economic impact, the number of passengers traveling through JMAA has dropped in recent years from over a million passengers in 2014 to 985,450 passengers in 2016.

The measure of total economic output, including at the state level and including auxiliary and external business operations, is estimated that output of JMAA is $957 million. The total amount of jobs is 6,642, and the total amount of payroll contribution is $306 million.

"It is the conclusion of this report that the total monetary impact is a much better indicator of the total overall impact," the report shows. "It allows to capture all dollar values that may not be captured by the traditional output value. Based on this premise, the research estimates the Total Monetary Economic Impact of JMAA at $1.84 billion."

Read more about the Jackson airport takeover bill and its history at jfp.ms/airport.