Growth in the New York Region's Airports

This growth was also aided by improvements to the region's airports, such as longer runways at LaGuardiaAirport (1967) that have made flying with smaller jet aircraft possible. Periodic reductions in airfares, such as the fares introduced by Peoples Express at Newark Airport in the 1980s, have also generated rapid growth. More recently, the addition of Jet Blue and Delta domestic service at JFK have made it the primary domestic hub in the region.

Economic downturns have tended to reduce the demand for air passenger service, during the sixty year period from 1948 to 2008; nine recessions slowed growth with traffic bouncing back only when the economy improved. 

The close relationship between the region's economy and air travel demand can be shown by comparing regional income with regional air travel; by and large, each billion dollars of added income has added over 100,000 air trips annually. Similarly, individual per capita income is also associated with more per capita air trips; each $10,000 of average annual income is associated with one additional air trip per capita.