Airports are economic-development hubs.

• Author: Bivins, D. Lawrence
• Position: FIRST IN FLIGHT

In the late 1990s, Wilmington International Airport was looking to diversify and strengthen its business model, which at the time depended heavily on gate fees from commercial airlines. "We were looking for other revenue streams," says Jim Morton, the airport's finance director. "The answer was land." Today, the 220-acre ILM Airport Business Park shows promise as an economic driver due to its logistical and manufacturing amenities. Businesses there enjoy direct access to the airport as well as a rail line. That same solution has been used as the key to unlock economic potential at airports across the Tar Heel State.

North Carolina's 72 publicly owned passenger and general-aviation airports generated nearly $26 billion of economic impact and employed about 109,000 people in the state during a 12-month period that started in 2010, according to a study by the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at N.C. State University in Raleigh. "Aviation means big business in North Carolina," says Bobby Walston, manager of statewide plans and programs at the N.C. Department of Transportation's Aviation Division. And all that impact isn't felt just at the airports in the state's major cities. For example, Brunswick County's popularity as a vacation and residential destination has spurred expansion of Cape Fear Regional Jetport near Oak Island. Once little more than a strip of pavement, 260 people now work at the airport, which is undergoing $3.6 million in improvements. Similar investments are being made at airports in Burlington, Concord, Monroe and Statesville. "Communities realize airports are an entry point for business."

Business travelers can fly nonstop to 142 destinations daily from Charlotte Douglas International Airport. Goods produced in the region move to their buyers with similar speed via the...