The definition of the Catchment Area of an airport is very broad and current literature suggests doing it in combination with certain pre-defined criteria: the assessment of the impact or effectiveness of a certain airport, or from the perspective of competition between airports. This paper aims to assess the validity of the hinterland defined by the Portuguese airport manager, ANA - Aeroportos de Portugal. A case study was developed involving the three main national airports: Lisbon (LIS), Oporto (OPO) and Faro (FAO). ANA defined the hinterland of each airport. Thus, a survey was developed to the companies located within the hinterland of every airport aiming to understand the existence of any relationship between them and the closest airport. We followed a stratified sample method to determine the size of the survey. We only considered import and export companies with the highest business volumes. Data analysis was performed using GIS (Geographic Information System), that is a software, spatial data and computational procedures system that enables and facilitates the analysis, management and representation of space and phenomena that occur in it. We collected a total of 243 surveys. The main conclusion of the study was that the calculation of an airport’s hinterland based exclusively on the travel time or distance is, potentially, misleading. It is proposed the use of other factors. The validity of such a method and practice raises some doubts. The actual distribution of economic activities and population is ignored as well as the mutual influence of several airports. Further research is now needed to
calculate airports actual influence.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
