Elizabeth Jaedicke

Managing Director

Elizabeth Jaedicke is an aviation advisor with 19 years of experience helping clients understand future air traffic demand and its potential effects on revenue streams, technology, infrastructure requirements and economic growth. At TMAG, Ms. Jaedicke provides clients with a rigorous approach to aviation economic analysis based on extensive industry knowledge and a detailed understanding of aviation data sources. Ms. Jaedicke specializes in the intersection of aviation and economics. She helps clients to forecast future aviation activity flows, evaluate their economic impact, develop non-aeronautical revenue strategies, and to increase aeronautical revenue through new service. She has worked on projects for over 225 airports around the globe.

Over her career, Ms. Jaedicke has worked on projects that cover the themes of each of the ACRP 03-65B reports. In addition to experience with the subject matter of the ACRP 03-65N reports, Ms. Jaedicke also has experience working within the ACRP report process. Details of her latest ACRP project (Report 251) are below. In 2016-2018, Ms. Jaedicke served as a panel member for ACRP Report 194 (Project# 03-36): Using Disaggregated Socioeconomic Data in Air Passenger Demand Studies. She is a friend of the Transportation Research Board (TRB)’s Aviation Economics and Forecasting Committee AV040.

Multi-Airport Regions

Through project work, Ms. Jaedicke is familiar with airline and passenger choice in multi-airport regions. She has forecast aviation activity for multi-airport regions across the globe, including New York City, London, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Toronto, Mexico City, and Chicago, among others. These forecasts have covered airline choice variables including business model, competitive position, and alliances; passenger choice variables covered include drive times, airline preference, fare, parking fees and service frequency. In particular, she has conducted multiple leakage studies examining how passengers choose between two airports located a similar distance from their home/office.

The largest multi-airport region project that Ms. Jaedicke worked on was the New England (NE) Regional System Plan for the FAA in 2005. This plan developed comprehensive forecasts of aviation demand across the primary airports of the six-state NE region. Based on air service and economic trends in the region as well as regional projections of air travel demand, she developed short and long-term forecasts of scheduled passenger demand for the region. A trip generation model was developed to disaggregate passenger demand to the town level. Ms. Jaedicke then allocated future passenger demand across 11 airports using forecasts of drive times, service levels, fares, and airport access.

Economic Impact

Ms. Jaedicke has worked with EBP (proposed partner on ACRP 03-65B) on several airport economic impact studies. For example, while managing an air service development contract with Tampa International Airport (TPA), Ms. Jaedicke collaborated with EBP on an economic impact study covering the impacts from visitor spending, current and new international air service, the capital investment plan, airport management and tenants, and taxes at TPA. In addition to overall airport impacts, the impacts of individual routes were also calculated. In 2016, Ms. Jaedicke led a team of consultants that estimated the potential economic impact to the State of Hawaii of a Hawaiian Airlines pilot strike. Multiple scenarios were evaluated based on the timing of the strike and varying strike lengths. Impacts were estimated for the following areas: airline operations, inter-state trade, healthcare, cultural effects, inter-island business and education.

In addition, Ms. Jaedicke carried out in-depth research into federal funding (including COVID-19 relief funds and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) of airport infrastructure projects as part of her work on the Virginia Aviation System Plan in 2022.

Small- and Non-Hub Airports

Ms. Jaedicke is familiar with current challenges facing small- and non-hub airports through both her air service development and forecasting work. She has recently created master plan forecasts for Westchester County (small-hub), Nantucket (non-hub), Mobile Regional (non-hub), Paine Field (non-hub), and Lake Charles Regional (non-hub). Of particular relevance to these smaller airports were fleet changes resulting from the retirement of smaller regional jets and the possibility of electric aircraft service. As part of these forecasts, Ms. Jaedicke interviewed airport management to understand their air service goals, incentive programs, working relationship with the community, and infrastructure needs. She also interviewed carriers currently or potentially serving these airports to understand how they view small- and non-hubs in terms of their networks and fleet plans.

Airport Services for International Customers

Ms. Jaedicke has completed projects for many U.S. airports with international service and understands U.S. entry/exit requirements. In addition, she has worked at non-U.S. airports around the world that have implemented technology to enhance the customer experience of their passengers and ease travel. In many cases, non-U.S. airports are ahead of the United States in terms of introducing new technology into the terminal and integrating technology already carried by passengers (i.e., smartphones) with airport operations.

Ms. Jaedicke conducted research into these technologies as part of her contribution to a project for the TRB entitled ACRP Research Report 251: Digital Marketing to Enhance Customer Experience and Increase Airport Revenue. This project was designed to help U.S. airports transform a passenger’s journey into a more seamless experience through digitalization. Ms. Jaedicke’s work focused on two aspects: 1) defining where on the passenger journey digital technology could ease a passenger’s journey, and 2) how passengers currently interact with airports digitally. Ms. Jaedicke examined the typical stages of a passenger’s journey from home to gate and highlighted the digital marketing opportunities for airports to consider. Her research found that there are six stages of the passenger journey where an airport can digitally interact with a passenger that could lead to increased revenue and enhance the customer experience.

The second aspect of Ms. Jaedicke work was to understand how passengers currently interact with airports through digital technology, namely via airport websites and mobile applications. To answer this question, Ms. Jaedicke conducted two surveys: one of U.S. airport websites and the other of U.S. airport mobile applications. Ms. Jaedicke reviewed 144 U.S. airport websites (28 large hub, 36 medium hub, and 80 small hub) and 22 airport mobile applications (15 percent of U.S. hub airports) to determine the type and level of detail of information presented. From the survey, Ms. Jaedicke was able to establish what passenger needs can be met at each airport. The results of these surveys were used to identify best and standard practices across U.S. airport websites and mobile applications. Through this work, Ms. Jaedicke has already begun investigating what technology that U.S. airports could implement for international passenger processing.

Ms. Jaedicke earned a Master of Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has also taught courses covering aviation data sources and forecasting techniques for airports.