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.