LOCATION OF AIRPORTS - SELECTED QUANTITATIVE METHODS

Background: The role of air transport in  the economic development of a country and its regions cannot be overestimated. The decision concerning an airport's location must be in line with the expectations of all the stakeholders involved. This article deals with the issues related to the choice of  sites where airports should be located.
Methods: Two main quantitative approaches related to the issue of airport location are presented in this article, i.e. the question of optimizing such a choice and the issue of selecting the location from a predefined set. The former involves mathematical programming and formulating the problem as an optimization task, the latter, however, involves ranking the possible variations. Due to various methodological backgrounds, the authors present the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and point to the one which currently has its own practical application.
Results: Based on real-life examples, the authors present a multi-stage procedure, which renders it possible to solve the problem of airport location.
Conclusions: Based on the overview of literature of the subject, the authors point to three types of approach to the issue of airport location which could enable further development of currently applied methods.