Future Development of the U.S. Airport Network

In the past 10 years air travel in the United States has increased by more than 75 percent, reaching 468 million passenger enplanements in 1987. The existing airport network has managed to accommodate this growth, but capacity has been stretched to practical limits at many of the busiest airports. Efforts to cope with the problems of airport congestion and delay are under way at both the federal and local levels, but even the most optimistic estimates indicate that these measures will be able to provide only temporary relief. To meet the rising demand for air travel, it will be necessary to consider large-scale measures to increase the fundamental capacity of the nation's airport network. At the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Transportation Research Board assembled a panel of airport planners, researchers, and aviation consultants to determine the dimensions of the problem and to establish the scope and direction that further detailed study should take. This report is intended primarily as a response to the FAA's request, though it is also directed to a wider audience with an interest in the future of aviation. The report includes preliminary estimates of future air travel demand, a description of measures to achieve increases in airport capacity, identification of factors that would affect the feasibility of these measures, and an outline of recommended research.