Despite the fact that New York area airports are generating huge sums, the aging facilities still need to be updated, a new report released today shows.
Big Apple airports accounted for nearly half a million jobs in 2012 and generated $63 billion in economic activity, according to the study, from developer Joseph Sitt’s nonprofit advocacy group the Global Gateway Alliance, which looks at issues facing airports that serve New York City.
The jobs generated by New York’s John F. Kennedy International, LaGuardia and Newark airports totaled $22.8 billion in wages and averaged $51,000 per employee, higher than 75 percent of all U.S. incomes, the report found. Of those, 213,000 jobs were at JFK, 147,000 at Newark and 87,000 at LaGuardia.
And yet, the report concluded that the area’s airports face a number of challenges, for the most part the result of needed infrastructure improvements to better accommodate the more than 19.5 million domestic and international travelers and 2 million tons of cargo that flowed through the airports last year.
Thor Equities CEO Joseph Sitt founded the alliance last year to improve the state of Big Apple-area airports, which he called an embarrassment. Among the groups aims are increased investment in aging airport infrastructure and overcrowding issues. As of January, Sitt had invested $1 million of his own money into the venture. [Crain’s] — Julie Strickland