Daytona Beach, FL - The airport serving the World's Most Famous Beach generated over $2 billion according to the state's department of transportation.
According to a recent report done by the Florida Department of Transportation, Daytona Beach International Airport managed to bring in $2.1 billion in economic impact to the local Volusia County area.
That full number is $2,109,597,000.
To reach that figure, FDOT took into consideration both the direct and indirect impacts the airport has on the area. That includes on-airport activity, visitor spending, industry reliance and military spending.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg according to some of the county-run airport's staff. Some say there's a lot more that wasn't accounted for.
"It looked primarily at our airfield facility," said Jay Cassens, the business development director for DBIA. "It didn't even include the work we do with the speedway or our four hotels and two restaurants. It just primarily focused on aviation."
Currently, Daytona Beach hosts three airlines that serve four different destinations in the United States and Canada.
Those airlines are Delta, who runs a daily non-stop service to Atlanta, American, who runs a daily non-stop to Charlotte and seasonal service to LaGuardia Airport in New York, and Sunwing who serves Toronto, Daytona's only international service.
And the impact comes even as Daytona lost some air service. Between the end of 2018 and the middle of 2019, two airlines pulled out of the airport. The first to go was JetBlue, who operated a non-stop service to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
JetBlue flew that route for three years until they announced that they were halting service in October of last year due to a "system-wide reallocation."
Not long after JetBlue announced the end of their service, Silver Airways, a small Florida-based commuter service, announced that they would begin non-stop flights between Daytona and Fort Lauderdale.
But, just a few months after their first flight, Silver Airways abruptly ended service to Daytona Beach.
And, when compared to the last survey, which was done in 2014, Daytona has almost doubled the last figure of $1.1 billion.
