By Jim Walsh | East Valley Tribune
Mesa has big plans for Falcon Field, already a powerful economic force as the fifth-busiest general aviation airport in the nation with 300,000 take offs and landings per year.
When combined with its international mega-corporation neighbor, The Boeing Co., the northeast Mesa aviation hot spot generates an estimated $6.8 billion a year, according to an economic impact report included in an updated Falcon Field master plan.
“That is an alternative way, a completely legitimate way, to look at the economic impact of the area,’’ said Lee McPheters, dean of Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business, who authored the study.
