Approximately how many total paved airports are there in the US?

Approximately how many total paved airports are there in the US?

• A. 20,000
• B. 15,000
• C. 25,000
• D. 30,000

Answer: (A)

Think about how many airfields exist when you include every scale of operation, not just the big commercial ones. A paved airport means there is a runway surface of asphalt or concrete, and there are thousands of these across the country—public facilities, private airstrips, and municipal airports alike. When you add them all up, the total sits in the vicinity of twenty thousand. That makes the option around twenty thousand the best fit, since it’s large enough to account for the widespread paved infrastructure, yet not so large as to imply far more paved airfields than most aviation inventories suggest. The other numbers would undercount or overstate how many paved airfields the U.S. has.

Think about how many airfields exist when you include every scale of operation, not just the big commercial ones. A paved airport means there is a runway surface of asphalt or concrete, and there are thousands of these across the country—public facilities, private airstrips, and municipal airports alike. When you add them all up, the total sits in the vicinity of twenty thousand. That makes the option around twenty thousand the best fit, since it’s large enough to account for the widespread paved infrastructure, yet not so large as to imply far more paved airfields than most aviation inventories suggest. The other numbers would undercount or overstate how many paved airfields the U.S. has.