DESCRIPTION OF THE CURRENT SYSTEM

These seminar comments concern the current national system of airports in the United States. They point out that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) uses two major tools to foster the national system of airports: (1) FAA maintains an enormous amount of technical information about where airports are needed and how they should be developed; and (2) the way FAA fosters a national airport system is through its grant and aid program. FAA's goal is to minimize congestion. FAA takes a long view, forecasting 10 to 20 years into the future, so that investments will be relevant to long-term needs.