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Houston Airport System
January 15, 2008
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In two months, travelers from Houston will have several new options for traveling abroad. Yet a closer look into the city’s current economic standing suggests local businesses will also have many more opportunities in the New Year.
According to Houston Mayor Bill White, the city has experienced tremendous growth over the last four years and is poised to continue growing in 2008.
“In little more than 200 weeks our urban area has added a quarter of a million new jobs. Consider this: we have added about four times more jobs than our total population a century ago,” he said during his January 2nd inaugural speech. “The total new jobs we have added in four years is more than the total number of jobs within the city limits at the end of World War II, and even more than the total number of cars in the Metropolitan area back then.”
Accounting for more than 151,000 local jobs, the Houston Airport System (HAS) is one of the primary reasons why the city’s international significance continues strengthening in the global market. New Asian all-cargo services like China Airlines, Korean Air Cargo and EVA Air Cargo are providing more efficient access to new markets for the local economy. These three new services were all inaugurated from George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) within the past 15 months.
In fact, according to data collected by the research company World City, total international trade to and from Houston reached an overall value of more than $162 billion in 2006. This makes the city the fourth-largest US customs trade district in the nation, and the largest in the state of Texas.
Los Angeles, New York City and Detroit are the only three US customs districts that rank higher than Houston.
Customs districts are designated by the US Census Bureau and include several airports and seaports within a certain jurisdiction. The Houston customs district includes Corpus Christi, Freeport, Galveston, Houston, Bush Intercontinental Airport, Port Lavaca, Sugar Land Regional Airport and Texas City. |
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Top Dollar. Houston's airports bring new opportunities for the local region. |
“Houston is definitely well positioned to continue growing for a long time in the foreseeable future,” said Richard Vacar, director of the Houston Airport System. “There are no geographical constraints that hinder our airports’ growth and the advent of new longer-haul aircraft is fueling new aviation opportunities for the city.”
Among those opportunities are the four new daily flights to Heathrow Airport, which will begin in March 2008, by both Continental Airlines and British Airways. Historic services to the United Arab Emirates by Emirates Airline, and to Singapore and Moscow by Singapore Airlines, also quantify the new opportunities in the Houston aviation industry.
Emirates began their three times weekly flights between Houston and Dubai on December 3, 2007. Next month they will increase their service to daily flights.
Also beginning in March of 2008, Singapore Airlines will start operating four weekly nonstop flights to Moscow, Russia from George Bush Intercontinental Airport with continuing service to Singapore, adding two new destinations to the nearly 70 international destinations already served from IAH.
The city’s all-inclusive air, sea, rail and roadway transportation infrastructure is what Vacar considers the most attractive selling point for the city. Especially when talking about air cargo trade.
“If you can get your products and services from point A to point B in less time and at a lower cost, as a business owner you are going to take advantage of that,” he explained. “That is what the cargo industry is finding in Houston.”
In 2006, the state of Texas ranked as the top exporter in the nation, exporting more than $150 billion. Houston was the top exporter in the state with over $58.1 billion exported through all modes of transportation.
The airports alone moved more than 367,000 metric tons of air cargo.
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