Page 52 - Planning and Design of Airports

30 Airp o r t Pl anning

Act of 1979 (Public Law 96-193) amended this legislation to place
increased emphasis on reducing the noise impacts of airports. Thus
one of the principal differences between the Federal Airport Aid Pro-
gram and the Airport Development Aid Program was the emphasis
on environmental protection in the latter.
The Airport and Airway Development Act made no mention con-
cerning specific standards for determining airports to be included in
the National Airport System Plan. It did state, however, that

The Plan shall set forth, for at least a ten-year period, the type and esti-
mated cost of an airport development considered by the Secretary to be
necessary to provide a system of public airports adequate to anticipate
and meet the needs of civil aeronautics, to meet the requirements in
support of the national defense as determined by the Secretary of
Defense, and to meet the special needs of the Postal Service. In formu-
lating and revising the plan, the Secretary shall take into consideration,
among other things, the relationship of each airport to the rest of the
transportation system in the particular area, to the forecasted techno-
logical developments in aeronautics, and to developments forecasted in
the other modes of transportation.

With this and other policy guidelines, the FAA developed entry
criteria which described a broad and balanced airport system. The
1980 NASP, for example, included about 3600 airport locations, indi-
cating that the federal interest in developing a basic airport system
extended well beyond the major airports with scheduled airline serv-
ice. In an effort to provide a safe and adequate airport for as many
communities as possible, NASP criteria were developed to include
the general aviation airports which serve smaller cities and towns.
The NASP airport entry criteria evolved from both policy and
legislative considerations and focused on two broad categories of air-
ports, those with scheduled service and those without significant
scheduled service in the general aviation and reliever category. Air-
ports with scheduled service were included in NASP because of their
use by the general public, legislative provisions which specifically
designated airports to receive development funds, and their use by
CAB certified carriers. Commuter airports were identified in NASP
starting in 1976, when legislation was enacted which designated them
as a type of air carrier airport and provided them with special devel-
opment funds. About 70 percent of the airports in the NASP were
general aviation locations which met the criteria of viability because
of the number of based aircraft or aircraft activity, and which pro-
vided reasonable access for aircraft owners and users to their com-
munity. Reliever airports have been included as a separate NASP
category since the 1960s when Congress designated special funding
for the purpose of relieving congestion in large metropolitan areas by
providing additional general aviation capacity.