Our aviation system is served by a diverse mixture of airports ranging in size from small back-country airports to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the state's busiest commercial airport. The system is comprised of public use airports, both publicly and privately owned, which are conveniently located to meet a full range of transportation needs for commercial, business, personal, recreation, training and medical emergencies.
With significant change expected in coming years, WSDOT Aviation conducts long-term planning to face the challenge of maintaining and improving our aviation system for the future. There is a growing recognition that Washington’s network of 140 public use airports needs to be managed as an integrated system, to more strategically invest the public resources necessary to preserve future aviation capacity. It is the state’s role to guide development of a coherent statewide strategy to ensure that adequate aviation capacity exists to accommodate predicted growth.
The last system plan was completed in 2003. The study included an airport condition assessment, which provides a comprehensive collection of system-wide inventory data. The collected data is available on the web at WSASP Airport System Plan Database.
WSDOT Aviation is currently working on an update to the state aviation system plan. The update, titled “Long-term Air Transportation Study (LATS)” is a three-phase project to determine what we have, what we need, and how we meet the needs in the next 20-years. Find more information on LATS.
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