Definition
The formal, permanent closure of an airport, runway, or aviation facility, resulting in its removal from active aeronautical use and from official charts and publications. An abandoned airport is no longer maintained, inspected, or supported for normal flight operations.
Plain English
When an airport or runway is officially shut down for good and taken off the charts, so it is no longer treated as a usable place to land.
Context Anchor
Seen when reading about airports that are closed indefinitely and how their instrument procedures and chart information are handled.
Derivation
From the Old French 'abandoner', meaning to give up or relinquish control of something. In aviation use, it carries that same sense of officially giving up an airport — not just temporarily closing it, but releasing it from active service.
Why Pilots Care
An abandoned airport may still look like an airport from the air — runway markings, taxiways, even a windsock — but it is not safe or legal to use as an active landing site. Pilots who mistake an abandoned field for an active one risk landing on a deteriorated, obstructed, or legally off-limits surface.
Intuition Check
Abandonment does not mean the airport is simply quiet or temporarily unused. In this context, it means the facility has been given up for flight use and should not be treated as available.
Example Sentence 1
Following the abandonment of the old municipal field, the runway markings were painted over with large yellow X's to warn pilots not to land there.
Example Sentence 2
Before planning a flight to a remote field, check the handbook for any notice of abandonment that would make the runway unusable.