Locating an Airport by Voting

Since the 1920s, airports have become an integral part of the landscape. Life today is hard to imagine without airports; not just for passengers, but also—and increasingly important—freight. Following Our World in Data ( https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-airline-passengers?tab=table , undated), there were no less than 4.32 billion passengers in 2018. Furthermore, given the increasing trend to purchase items online, Statista (Worldwide air freight traffic from 2004 to 2022, 2022a) asserts that there have been 63 million metric tons of freight shipped via airplane, tendency increasing. Given the tremendous costs of locating, relocating, or expanding an airport, this is only done in extenuating circumstances. One such case is the relocating of Hong Kong’s Kai Tak airport to the formerly quaint island of Lantau at Chep Lap Kok. The new airports in Hong Kong and the one in Kansei near Osaka, Japan, cost US$20 billion each. In comparison, the new airport in London Heathrow) cost US$10.5 billion, while the airport in Denver, Colorado cost US$4.8 billion (Dingman, 10 most expensive airports ever built in the world. The Richest, 2013). An example for an exceedingly costly mistake is Montreal’s Mirabel airport. Conceived in the early 1970s for the 1976 Olympic Games, no less than 98,000 acres (153 square miles!) were originally expropriated for the purpose, generating fierce opposition. Only 17,000 acres, i.e., less than 20% of this area was actually in the operations zone. The decision to use Mirabel only for international flights, requiring passengers to make a 1-h drive to Dorval airport for connections, proved fatal. The last commercial flight into Mirabel was in 2004. The terminal building was demolished 10 years later, and part of the area is now used for commercial and aviation activities. 81,000 acres have been deeded back to their original owners. Part of the history along with some other historical accounts can be found in the Airport History.org (undated) website.