“Aviation contributes an estimated 8% to global GDP through direct and indirect effects (i.e.: the businesses and commerce that it enables), and an estimated 25% of companies’ sales rely on air transport,” writes Brian Potter on the Construction Physics website.
The article is titled, “Why Is It So Hard to Build an Airport?”
My headline is the one word answer to the headline’s question.
There are, of course, other reasons why building a commercial airport is hard, but it mostly boils down to noise.
Neighbors don’t want a busy airport in their neighborhood.
My favorite quote from the article is: “The US has built more commercial nuclear reactors in the past 25 years (two) than it has major commercial airports (none), even though air travel increased by almost 50% over that period.”
One of the most thoughtful lines, in my opinion, is from commenter Tom Goodwin, who asks, “Is it that hard to build a new airport or is it just hard to make a business case for it? The US built airports very rapidly for many decades because it needed them, does it need many new ones now?”
That’s a clever question.
The state of Washington wants to build a new commercial airport because KSEA, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, is at, or near, capacity — even with its relatively new third runway in operation.
The committee that selected a handful of proposed locations was met with opposition at every step.
For many of us pilots and aircraft owners, airports — and aircraft for that matter — fit into the “nice to have” category. They aren’t needs, but wants.
But wanting to fly doesn’t make it any less important.
Noise will always be an issue. And while there are a few people trying to bring airports online around the country, we’d do ourselves a world of good if we can simply preserve the airports that already exist.
Regardless, Brian’s article made for an interesting read.
Lets not forget that their has been little improvement in exhaust design provided by the OEM. Aftermarket such as powerflow are doing a great job and Textron should wake up to the improvements powerflow systems provide in performance and noise. Note that in Europe many aircraft have to install mufflers and tailpipes to comply with noise restrictions for years already and they have no operational issues.
Why are we blowing the un-muffled stacks straight down still vs up, back or out the side??
Other than avionics, the majority of aviation is so far behind the times and has not really improved since the end of WW2!
Back in the early 70’s LAX was talking about moving to the Palmdale/Lancaster area because it was “at or near capacity”. It never happened.
I flew in and out of LAX for 30 years , from 1977 . With 4 long runways it seems to handle the traffic ok, especially with the international terminal.
Car traffic is a real mess, poor parking and access roads.
Lancaster is about an hours drive from LA, when the 405/ I5 isn’t clogged with traffic…so a non-starter.
“Noise”…sure.
It’s become the “Go To”, boilerplate response to any airport-related project, not just new airport construction. No one will ever argue that noise is NOT a factor, even though turbine-powered aircraft are getting quieter every day…
But Mr. Sclair and I both know that there’s much, much more to the Sea-Tac Int’l Airport debacle than just “noise”.
The “NIMBY” factor here was absolutely off-the-charts: Some of it based on actual science; some of it based on uninformed speculation and incendiary rhetoric; and some based on political incompetence and cowardice.
The fact is that the need for a new Seattle “reliever” was identified back in the 60’s and early 70’s…when there were still viable “greenfield” sites available.
The officially-sanctioned “stake holder” group in charge of the project(s) back then, the Puget Sound Council of Governments, eventually identified a suitable site.
Unfortunately, they were subsequently cowed by local residents that didn’t want their “small town character” destroyed by the airport’s surface access road system…Airplane “noise” was much further down the list of issues.
The effort was abandoned.
Fast forward 50+ years:
The Western Washington/Puget Sound area population has exploded. No suitable land was “protected” to ensure airports, or any other transportation infrastructure, could be built without significant environmental & social impacts. Or staggering costs.
The most recent failure to push this project forward, just means we’ve kicked the can down the road for someone else to struggle with.
But it unequivocally has to be built..somewhere…someday.
Meanwhile, the population keeps exploding and the open land keeps disappearing.
Can you spell “eminent domain”?
BTW: That original “small town” site…is now a full-fledged “city”.
What about the new Denver airport, KDEN, vs the old field , Stapleton ?
I’d guess that it’s a replacement, but it is a new facility, and it’s HUGE.!
And KDEN is quite a ways from Denver, Stapleton was right downtown.
Fly in communities probably aren’t an issue because they tend to have home owners infrequent traffic..
Is adding commercial service to more towns financially viable, probably not. As long as I remember cities of 100,000 had to subsidize air carriers, and they constantly changed.
Perhaps another problem is municipal and GA living in the traffic pattern.
Curious as to the economic value is to local facilities. The overall numbers include Lycoming, Continental, Garmin, Avidyne, etc and many businesses that aren’t on an airport.
Another problem is of course, rural areas not remaining rural. Two of my ancestors “out in the country” farms are now downtown Arlington Texas.
‘ And KDEN is quite a ways from Denver ‘.
Yes, that was the plan, and they built a new freeway to it…very easy access, especially with the remote parking and shuttles.