Market and use cases
Counts of airports by suggested tier and region, from the method on the method page. These are counts of places a rule flags, not demand, revenue or a forecast of what any country will buy.
By region and tier
| Region | Assessed | No tower T1 | T2 | T3 | Towered T1 | T2 | T3 | Tier 4 | Hubs | Centres | Gap with a traffic figure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North America | 4,477 | 456 | 1,247 | 400 | 534 | 58 | 2 | 122 | 194 | 165 | 79% |
| Asia | 1,809 | 32 | 395 | 355 | 326 | 106 | 3 | 81 | 242 | 136 | 4% |
| South America | 4,405 | 22 | 77 | 383 | 179 | 33 | 5 | 424 | 64 | 62 | 23% |
| Europe | 2,005 | 21 | 109 | 299 | 314 | 133 | 8 | 39 | 131 | 105 | 11% |
| Oceania | 1,706 | 23 | 146 | 157 | 51 | 9 | 0 | 543 | 20 | 63 | 17% |
| Africa | 887 | 0 | 100 | 175 | 131 | 25 | 0 | 126 | 145 | 100 | 0% |
| Antarctica | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 2 | 0% |
T1, T2, T3 = tiers 1, 2, 3. "Gap with a traffic figure" is the share of no-tower airports that met a rule using a real passenger or movement number. The rest were placed by runway and size class, so treat those counts as weaker.
Where the counts are largest
No tower, tier 1 to 3 Towered, tier 1 to 3
Use cases
Regional airports with scheduled service and no tower
2,087 airports worldwide have scheduled service and no tower under this method. Many already run on radio advisory service. Remote service is one way to add traffic separation or longer hours where the volume justifies it.
Replacing or consolidating ageing towers
1,921 staffed-tower airports fit tiers 1 to 3. A tower that needs replacement is a decision point where a remote or digital option can be weighed against a new building.
Part-time and shoulder-hour coverage
2,074 airports without a tower fit tier 2. Part-time remote service matches airports with a few busy hours and long quiet ones.
Island, remote and medical access
1,345 isolated airfields fit tier 4. Cameras and surveillance feeds could give operators and pilots a picture, without claiming any air traffic service. The isolation test is distance only, not a medical or road study.
Contingency for existing towers
796 large hubs are left alone. For those, digital tower technology is more likely to appear as a backup or an added view than as a replacement.
Training, simulation and trials
Every tier needs controller training and human-in-the-loop trials. That work is not counted here, and the airport counts say nothing about it.
Where it stands today
On this site, 45 remote or digital tower sites are operational, 10 are in trial and 42 are planned, in 32 countries. The method flags 4,397 airports without a tower. The distance between those two numbers is the point of this section, but it is not a market size: most flagged airports will never justify a remote tower.
Honest caveats
- Traffic data is uneven. 11,465 of the 15,304 assessed airports are in the 33 country-page countries. The other countries use only OurAirports (runway, size class, scheduled flag) and no national traffic table.
- US movements are estimates. For airports without a tower the FAA forecast uses estimated operations. Some are high.
- Tower presence is a proxy. A tower frequency in OurAirports does not prove staffed hours, and frequency lists are incomplete in some countries, which can hide towers and overstate the gap.
- Some figures are secondary. India, Japan and Canada use ranked lists compiled on Wikipedia from national agencies; airports outside the lists have no figure.
- Australia's open file ends in 2020, so 2019 figures are used.
- Thresholds are choices. Change them and the counts change. They are on the method page so you can see how.
- Not every gap should be filled. A radio-advised airfield can be safe and economical as it is.