Glasgow Prestwick Airport: economic impact assessment

Executive summary

Overview of Glasgow Prestwick Airport’s economic impact

The purpose of this report is to provide the Scottish Government (SG) with an understanding of the economic, social, and wider value that Glasgow Prestwick Airport (GPA) brings to the Ayrshire economy, Scotland and the UK and to communicate this value to key stakeholders. The report presents a range of quantitative and qualitative measures that allow GPA to estimate its socioeconomic impact. By examining these measures, using latest available data for FY 2023, the Scottish Government can gain valuable insights into the significance of GPA and its contributions to the local and national economy.

GPA is an international airport located in Ayrshire, Scotland. Owned by SG since 2013, the airport historically played a significant role in the development of aviation in Scotland and continues to serve as a key driver of economic growth and high skilled employment across the region.^[1]

Key Findings

Figure 1 below summarises the key results from the analysis conducted in this report in the Year to 31 March 2023 (‘FY 23’) and indicates that GPA generated £26.6m of benefits in GVA terms and employed 524 employees in direct, indirect and induced terms from its core aviation activities. In addition to unlocking secondary and wider GVA impacts of between £161.4m to £230.8m and £65.4m to £65.8m respectively.^[2]

In summary, the report analyses the following socioeconomic impacts generated by GPA in FY 2023:

A: Core Benefits

• An assessment of GPA’s economic impact in terms of direct, indirect and induced GVA and employment, from its core aviation activities, which indicates that GPA contributes GVA of £26.6m and 524 FTEs.

B: Secondary Benefits

• Socioeconomic benefits generated by activities hosted on the GPA site and in close proximity to it, including search and rescue services (SAR), maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) services and logistics via the rail link connection provided by ScotRail constitute secondary benefits. This is estimated to generate a GVA impact of £161.4m-£230.8m.

C: Wider Benefits

• The impact of GPA's services extends beyond the airport's core and secondary activities in the form of spillover effects, with significant implications for the Ayrshire region and Scotland as a whole. In particular, GPA has an impact through tourism related spending which supports an estimated 1,830 tourist jobs in the Scottish economy and via apprenticeships offered by businesses within the Aerospace Engineering and Aviation Cluster. These benefits are estimated to generate a GVA impact of between £65.4m - £65.8m.
• It should also be noted that GPA also plays a key role in infrastructure development in the Ayrshire region generating a ‘cluster effect’, as evidenced by its diverse tenant portfolio and qualitative insights drawn from the stakeholder engagement process and accompanying case studies.

The analysis presented in this report demonstrates GPA’s ability to contribute to local and national economic impacts via direct, indirect and wider activities across aviation, training, tourism and clustering activities.

To underscore the socioeconomic impacts generated by GPA, an analysis of the airport’s revenue from 2019 to 2024 has been conducted. This analysis illuminates the shifts in GPA's key revenue streams—Fixed Based Operator (FBO) and fuelling services, passenger services, and cargo services—before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings highlight GPA's strategic and multifaceted role as an aviation asset, particularly in its fuelling, cargo, military (for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Department of Defence (DoD)), and training services. GPA's value is further amplified by its strategic location, long runway, rail access, and 24/7 operational capabilities.

This contextual analysis and estimated impacts provide evidence that GPA remains a strategically important national aviation asset in Scotland, maintaining its performance and economic contribution, despite changes in ownership, travel patterns and macroeconomic conditions over the past decade.^[4]

Key Aspects of Our Approach

In estimating these impacts, the key activities of the airport have been split into core, secondary and wider aviation activities. By doing so, the report aims to estimate the direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts of GPA's activities. This analysis has been undertaken using primary and secondary data, including discussions with 11 key stakeholders and publicly available data provided by GPA and the SG’s IO Tables (2019).^[5] Table 1 below summarises the categorisation of GPA’s activities into core, secondary and wider activities, for the purposes of this analysis.

Table 1: Categorisation of GPA’s activities

Core Activities: Constitutes direct benefit to the economy from GPA’s activities

• FBO and fuelling services (incl. rental income, refuelling services to military aircraft, military and executive FBO)
• Passenger services (incl. PAX^[6] aircraft landing, navigation and parking services, income from car parking and rental income from property services e.g. retail concessions)
• Cargo services (incl. rental income, cargo handling, bond storage, transhipment and Customs Clearance)
• Aerodrome services (incl. rental income, landing, navigation and parking services related to aircraft training, private aircraft and radar services, commercial services such as film shooting and advertising)

Secondary Activities: Constitutes indirect benefits to the economy through the activities of businesses operating on, or near, the airport’s premises

• Prestwick Aerospace Campus related activities via MRO and aircraft component providers such as (Prestwick Aircraft Maintenance and Storm Aviation) and other aviation related businesses
• Search and Rescue services provided by Bristow Helicopters
• Rail connection provided by ScotRail at GPA owned railway station

Wider Support: Support to the local region stemming from clustering benefits that GPA unlocks through its core and secondary activities

• Tourism supported through GPA passenger services
• Training activities through upskilling opportunities offered by GPA and companies located in close proximity
• Wider cluster benefits stemming from infrastructure development, training and employment, etc. via the Aerospace Engineering and Aviation Cluster

Table 1.0 indicates that compared with most commercial airports in the UK, GPA's activities extend beyond passenger services encompassing FBO and fuelling services, passenger services, cargo services, aerodrome services and rental income from its property assets. It also facilitates pilot training and occasionally serves as a film shoot location.

Overall, this report estimates that GPA generates various quantitative and qualitative impacts through its core, secondary and wider activities, contributing to national and regional economic output, and supporting high value jobs - particularly in the Ayrshire region.