Definition
A scaled drawing of an airport that shows the existing and planned layout of all airport facilities, including runways, taxiways, ramps, buildings, navigational aids, property boundaries, and obstructions. The ALP is the official planning document the FAA uses to evaluate proposed changes at federally obligated airports and to guide future development.
Plain English
An official map of the airport showing what is there now and what is planned for the future. It is the airport's master drawing for development.
Context Anchor
Pilots may see this term in airport planning, airport improvement projects, FAA documents, or discussions about future changes to an airport.
Why Pilots Care
Pilots rarely use the ALP directly, but it determines what the airport you fly into will look like in the future — new runways, relocated taxiways, removed obstructions. Changes you see in chart updates often trace back to an updated ALP.
Analogy
An ALP is like a master floor plan for an airport: it shows what is there now and what the airport is approved to build or change later.
Intuition Check
Do not read “airport layout plan” as just any map of an airport. In FAA use, an ALP is a formal airport planning document, not a cockpit taxi map.
Example Sentence 1
The airport's new parallel taxiway was built according to the most recent airport layout plan approved by the FAA.
Example Sentence 2
Airport planners update the ALP when adding a runway or changing terminal locations.