There are over 4,000 airports in the country and most of these airports are owned by governments. A 2003 sur- vey conducted by Airports Council International–North America concluded that city ownership accounts for percent, followed by regional airports at 25 percent, single county at 17 percent, and multi-jurisdictional at percent. Primary legal services to these airports are, in most cases, provided by municipal, county, and state attorneys. Research reports and summaries produced by the Airport Continuing Legal Studies Project and published as ACRP Legal Research Digests are developed to assist these attorneys seeking to deal with the myriad of legal problems encountered during airport development and operations. Such substantive areas as eminent domain, environmental concerns, leasing, contracting, security, insurance, civil rights, and tort liability present cutting- edge legal issues where research is useful and indeed needed. Airport legal research, when conducted through the TRB’s legal studies process, either collects primary data that usually are not available elsewhere or performs analysis of existing literature. Foreword The widespread consolidation that has occurred within the U.S. airline industry (leaving just four majors or net- work carriers), as well as the rise of several air carrier business models (including “Ultra Low Cost Carriers” that often fly only one flight to certain cities a few days a week), has fundamentally changed the nature of air ser- vice and the competition among air carriers at airports. Consolidation also has occurred in the fixed-base operator (FBO) arena and competition among these service providers has been significantly altered…Open full document
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Airport Cooperative Research Program #37