
Geographical Scales of Airport Location
The location of an airport can be considered from two fundamental
scales:
- International / Regional. The location of an airport
fits in a network of passenger and freight air transport services.
On the above figure, the airport is an important hub serviced by
many connections. Air hubs tend to by points of convergence of regional
services and gateways to international destinations.
- Local. The location of an airport is subject to accessibility
to its market area, implying that it must be easily reached. Since
airport sites have many constraints, they tend to be located at
the fringe of the metropolitan areas they service. To alleviate
this problem, many airports have been integrated to highway and
railway systems, giving them a high level of local access.