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1 I. INTRODUCTION Airport law is a recognizable legal discipline. The statutes, regulations, and federal policies governing the operation of airports are distinct from rules governing other land uses and modes of transit. Partly as a result, the application of Constitutional principles and generally-applicable statutory requirements to airports has developed into its own body of law. Although practitioners may recognize the unique nature of airport law, its sources are widely dispersed. There are no case-comprehensive reporters, digests, treatises, or similar documents dedicated to airport law. Nor are there any comprehensive databases or compilations available online. While airport law sometimes is considered a subspecies of aviation law, its treatment in aviation law resources is incomplete. One consequence of this dispersion of knowledge is that a lawyer conducting research on airport law typically must consult multiple sources to gather information. Researchers may never be sure that the inquiry was comprehensive. This digest is one attempt to remedy this problem. This digest includes over 500 federal sources, indicating where those sources can be found online or in case reporters. Section I identifies the relevant statutes, regulations, case law databases, secondary sources, periodicals, and state aviation departments. Airport law practitioners might consult these sources to familiarize themselves with a particular subject or to stay abreast of developments. Section II is a topical index containing the statutes, regulations, federal policies, reports, articles, and cases relevant to a particular subject. Airport law practitioners might consult these sources when initiating research on a particular topic and to ensure that their research conducted through other methods is comprehensive. The limits of this digest are equally important. The digest does not include state materials, many U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrative decisions (some of which are intended to be included in a separate legal research digest), or generally-applicable sources that may be consulted in the practice of airport law (e.g., government contracting, environmental management). This digest is current only through the date of publication. Moreover, although this report is intended to provide a list of resources, the report may not include every case or document relevant to a particular subtopic.
