This report incorporates data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of
Transportation, U.S. Department of Labor, and the National Science Foundation from the years
2018–2020.

In September 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce completed the release of the 2017 Economic
Census. Due to incorporating this updated data source, FAA was no longer able to produce reliable
estimates for Civilian Avionics Manufacturing. As a result, this report does not report estimates for
Civilian Avionics Manufacturing.

For this report, the FAA used the most recent Regional Input-Output Modeling System (RIMS II)
multipliers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). These multipliers reflect the 2012 input-output
benchmark table (I-O table) and the 2020 regional economic accounts. Compared to those
used in the 2018 report6, all of the new multipliers imply a slightly higher impact to output, earnings,
and value added whereas the multipliers impacts for jobs are lower.

This report continues to group industry sectors by their primacy in relation to the function of
providing air transport. The first category is Direct, which includes airline and airport operations,
aircraft manufacturing and others. The second category is Catalytic, which comprises only travel
arranging services and visitor spending. This change brings the report more closely into alignment
with common usage of the terminology that appears in other economic impact studies. This affects
only the presentation of the results.

Finally, while the data source for domestic airline visitor expenditure was kept the same, the
methodology was changed. The Consumer Expenditure Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
provides the underlining data for domestic airline visitor expenditure. This report continues to use the
Consumer Expenditure Survey but will now use the public use microdata. The microdata will help
better reflect the economic impact of domestic visitor expenditure on civil aviation.