Closing and repurposing airports

To reduce air traffic and build post-aviation futures

Photo by Phil Lev on Unsplash

In the face of escalating climate breakdown, closing airports is no longer a radical demand—it’s a necessary response to the socioecological emergency we are living through.

The aviation industry has expanded rapidly, contributing 4% to global temperature rise, with air traffic doubling every eight years from 1950 to 2000. The industry has attempted unpromising decarbonization strategies: improvements in fuel efficiency were outweighed by rising demand, and switching to alternative energy is limited by physics, land needed for biomass, and the lack of enough sustainable aviation fuel. This means that reducing air traffic is essential if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Airports rely on revenue from leasing space inside terminals and from retail, on top of operating flights. This is part of their model for accumulating capital and they couldn’t function without it. They also stimulate local and regional growth, functioning as real estate hubs that attract multinational corporations. This growth results in the development of “aerotropolises,” urban areas surrounding airports that integrate transportation, commercial, and residential spaces, driving the expansion of high-value projects.

As airports grow to stay competitive, boost their appeal and hold onto their position in the market, they require more flights to generate revenue (landing fees, retail, parking, etc.) to cover the rising costs of their expansion and complexity, while airlines push for higher passenger numbers to offset declining ticket prices and preserve their market share. This leads to a “double gear” effect with airlines and airports needing more flights and passengers to remain profitable. This creates an oversupply of flights, with airlines offering more seats than people actually need—often using marketing to encourage more travel. As a result, the system puts more strain on the environment, increasing the use of fossil fuels and other resources. That’s why closing airports matters: they rely on limited resources and are built on a constant need to grow, which drives more environmental damage over time.

Closures are an important aspect of both degrowth and capitalism. Airport closures under capitalism often result from the spatial pressures created by the need for larger, more modern infrastructures to accommodate growing air traffic and evolving aircraft technologies. As existing airports become physically obsolete—due to limited runway configurations, terminal capacities, or geographical constraints, as seen with Hong Kong’s Kai Tak Airport —closure enables the construction of new, more expansive airports, thus perpetuating growth.

In a degrowth framework, closures are driven by socio-ecological non-viability, not growth. Unlike capitalist closures, they are not followed by the opening of larger airports. Ecological closures need to take into account how important each airport is to its community, so that the people who depend on it the most aren't unfairly affected. Beyond being symbolic, ecological closures mean actually taking apart airport infrastructure, cleaning up pollution, and following environmental and aviation rules—like those in Canada—for safely shutting everything down. Former airport lands often face serious challenges due to pollution from fuels, paints, and industrial chemicals.

However, ecological closures face major legal hurdles. Existing laws offer little protection for closures based on ecological non-viability, and could even trigger legal battles, as seen with the Schiphol Airport case in the Netherlands. Crucially, closures may conflict with property rights protections, a cornerstone of Western legal systems, as owners retain exclusive rights over their infrastructure. Unless new legal pathways are developed, attempts to close airports for ecological reasons may trigger significant political and judicial resistance.

The goal of airport closures in the context of a degrowth policy framework is not closure for its own sake, but to give their land and buildings new purposes that respect ecological and social limits. Unlike capitalist repurposing, which focuses on making profits to fund more fossil-fuel-based projects, ecological repurposing prioritizes democratic deliberation and planetary boundaries.

Indeed, the capitalist approach often seeks to redevelop decommissioned airports into commercial ventures such as hotels, logistics centers, or cruise terminals, as seen in the case of Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport, which became a cruise terminal, further increasing fossil fuel consumption (Wassener, 2013). On the other hand, ecological repurposing aims to transform old infrastructures into uses that respect democratically determined environmental limits (emissions, land and water use…) like community well-being, farming, and renewable energy. Examples of ecological repurposing include transforming former airports into wildlife corridors (e.g., El Toro Marine Base), solar farms (e.g., Fliegerhorst Oldenburg), urban agriculture sites (e.g., Floyd Bennett Field), or public parks (e.g., Tempelhof in Berlin).

A big challenge is the size of airport infrastructures. These large, permanent assets are often sold to private companies, which turn them into money-making projects, like the luxury hotel at JFK’s Terminal 5. Yet public intervention can overcome this, as seen in Irvine’s Great Park, where former airport hangars were transformed into cultural spaces. Municipal ownership allows infrastructures to serve public needs, supporting commons-based governance models. These spaces could house social housing, local supply chains, or decentralized digital and energy infrastructures, truly breaking away from profit-driven motives and contributing to an ecological and democratic reimagining of post-airport landscapes.

Another major challenge is to help workers transition to new sustainable livelihoods before airports close. This is essential to prevent economic hardship for those reliant on the sector. The aviation sector offers a diverse range of jobs, from pilots to maintenance and administrative roles, many of which can be transferred to ecological sectors like retail, logistics, and public transport. For instance, flight attendants and stewards, who make up 22% of Canada's aviation workforce, could transition to sectors such as local tourism, healthcare, or railways, leveraging their skills in safety, first aid, and customer relations. In Switzerland, pilots, displaced by the pandemic, were retrained for more than a year to operate trains.

The shift from aviation to ecological sectors, such as electric rail, is feasible with political support. This transition requires three conditions: (1) infrastructure investment for ecological sectors, (2) psychological support for workers to manage the emotional impacts of job loss, and (3) institutional support through public agencies for professional transition, ensuring workers’ financial stability and access to training. In the UK, many aviation workers are already considering these transitions in response to ecological challenges.

In a capitalist system, when airports close, workers lose their jobs and associated salaries, as pay is tied to job positions rather than personal qualifications. A "lifetime salary" based on personal qualifications, not the specific job, as conceptualized by Bernard Friot, would help maintain workers' value even if they lose their positions (Friot, 2011). This would allow them to transition to ecological jobs, preserving their skills while acquiring new ones. Another strategy could be an ecological basic income which could provide financial security while they transition to new, sustainable roles in local, craft-based economies. This income could enable workers to step away from the labor market, prioritizing non-market activities and building autonomy, helping shift society away from industrial capitalism towards decentralized, sustainable production and consumption.

Note: This blog post aims to make my peer-reviewed article, published in French in April 2025, more accessible to a wider audience.