Are there some big cities in United States without an airport?

16 comments

1. Define what is an airport in this context.

   Macon, Georgia is a city of about 150k population, but given it’s proximity (about 75 miles away) to Atlanta, it doesn’t have direct commerical airline service anywhere from the closest airport, and Middle Georgia Regional airport has a single EAS subsidized route to Baltimore which sees an average of about 21 passengers in each direction per day.

2. This seems like a really specific question better answered by people with knowledge of aviation, like /r/aviation.

   I don’t know how the average American would know this other than a random piece of trivia they came across.

3. Without an airport? Probably not.

   Without an international airport? Probably.

   Monroe County, IN, home of Indiana University, only has a county airport and doesn’t currently have commercial service. Indianapolis International is only about 90 minutes or so away, and IU does run shuttles to and from IND for students.

   Bloomington is technically at about 80k, but there’s a lot of unincorporated areas that are practically surrounded by city limits so I wouldn’t be surprised if the population is actually 100k or more.

4. The only one I can think of is Winston Salem, which is right next to another city about the same size, Greensboro. Greensboro has an airport but Winston Salem does not.

5. Athens, GA doesn’t have any commercial flights. You have to fly into Atlanta about 75 miles away

   They do have a general aviation airport, but those are all over the country and any sizeable city will have some

6. Salem OR comes to mind. Had to work there twice last year. Closest airport with airlines is Portland about an hour or so north.

7. Without any airport? No. We have thousands of airports. My buddy has an airport that he and their neighbors maintain.

   But without commercial flights? Sure.

8. I assume you mean without commercial service? There are thousands of airports in the US, so even some very small towns have one.

   There are probably some examples of cities that size without commercial service, but usually that would happen if they’re fairly close to another city with an airport.

9. There are a lot of cities without *international* airports but most have at least a regional one. We have a lot of airports, [5200 of them open to the public, to be exact](https://www.statista.com/statistics/183496/number-of-airports-in-the-united-states-since-1990/) and significantly more that are private.

10. Pretty confident that 100,000 people is not considered a big city. It’s an arbitrary value but I think the accepted value is anything above 500,000 people.

    I’m not going to really answer this question because there are a lot of cities that are 100,000 people without an airport within 50 mile radius. My main point is that the parameters you put it in is too broad and many cities would qualify.

    I kind of don’t like the comments regarding airports because the implication is pretty clear. Unless said otherwise, cargo airports and small plane airports were not considered.

11. >city
    >
    >100K people

    Pick one.

12. There are over 330 cities in the US with over 100,000 population. And that just actual city population (which isn’t a great measure consid ring suburban sprawl) , not metro area populations.

    100,000 isn’t really a “big city”. There are many suburbs of major cities that are far larger than that.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population

    And here’s a list of all the commercial airports in the US

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_United_States

13. Without any airport at all? My money is on “no way in hell.”

    Even the most isolated places at least have an airstrip nearby. There might only be one flight in and out per day, but it’s still there.

14. Technically a few chunks of Dallas/Fort Worth meet that but….DFW’s right there, the area just doesn’t happen to be incorporated as one big city, it’s broken up into 220-something of them.

    I think that’ll be most of these, they are part of an extended metro that has a major commercial airport or are within an hour or two by car of another city with a major airport.

    Like…Waco has an airport but if you’re flying more than a local commuter route you’re probably going to end up going through DFW be it by car or connecting flight and austin or houston if not there.

15. 100k?

    All will have an airport, however, there might not be regular commercial flights at some (only charter/private flights).

16. DC doesn’t have an airport within the boundaries of the district. Reagan National (DCA) is right across the river in Virginia though. IIRC they have a DC address but they are still geographically in Virginia.