How Airports Serve Alabama
Mark Pearson
This map displays the major airports in and around Alabama. It shows how the state can divided according to which airport is the closest as the crow flies.
The flags are a sample of 500 census tracts (of 1178 tracts total) within the state.
Some census tract flags may look like they are colored for one airport's region but are actually in another airport's region. The census tract flags are colored with which airport they are closest to as the crow flies along the surface of the earth (the Haversine distance formula). The region boundaries that are displayed on map were computed assuming assuming the earth is flat. (The lines that divide regions are a Voronoi diagram, and I couldn't find any algorithm that calculate the lines on a sphere such as the earth.) In short, although a few census tracts may look like they're mislabeled near a boundary, it's actually the boundary that is slightly wrong.
For more information, see the full report:
http://www.mark-pearson.com/airport-distances/

BHM serves 1,716,829 people in AL
Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport

HSV serves 1,026,376 people in AL
Huntsville International Airport (Carl T. Jones Field)

MGM serves 942,246 people in AL
Montgomery Regional Airport (Dannelly Field)

MOB serves 574,778 people in AL
Mobile Regional Airport

VPS serves 177,400 people in AL
Northwest Florida Regional Airport / Eglin Air Force Base

PNS serves 133,898 people in AL
Pensacola Gulf Coast Regional Airport

CHA serves 87,245 people in AL
Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport (Lovell Field)

ATL serves 62,012 people in AL
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

TLH serves 53,290 people in AL
Tallahassee Regional Airport

JAN serves 5,662 people in AL
Jackson-Evers International Airport

dividing line

3,516 people
closest airport: CHA

2,896 people
closest airport: BHM

3,789 people
closest airport: MGM

closest airport: BHM

closest airport: HSV

closest airport: MOB

870 people
closest airport: MGM

closest airport: MGM

closest airport: VPS

closest airport: TLH

closest airport: CHA

closest airport: PNS

6 people

closest airport: ATL

closest airport: JAN

995 people