Airport, Economics, Estonia, GDP, Tourism, Transport

Lauri says in her analysis that many studied have proved that the impact of airports and aviation as a whole is quite big on a region and a country's economy, and often its indirect impact is even more important that the direct one.

Per one million passengers of the Tallinn airport about 1,340 direct jobs are created at Tallinn airport, in addition to 87 indirect jobs in companies connected to the airport.

"It has to be paid attention to that the share of Estonian Air is so big among the companies whose data we have that it influences the general results significantly," Lauri said.

Based on data from 2012, per 1.9 million air passengers 2,816 jobs were created, the expenses of which amounted to 230 million euros. Per 1.9 million passengers a total of 538 million euros of added value was created.

Lauri did not analyze the general impacts but provided some examples on how air connections impact Estonia's competitive ability. Since Estonia does not have the best geographical position globally or in Europe, the inexpensiveness of production has so far been an important advantage. But the natural process of economic convergence has weakened Estonia's traditional competitive advantages and in the future these might disappear. Therefore other aspects of competitive advantage will become more important.