Domestic airport
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A domestic airport is an airport which handles only domestic flights or flights within the same country. Domestic airports don't have customs and immigration facilities and are therefore incapable of handling flights to or from a foreign airport.
These airports normally have short runways which are sufficient to handle short/medium haul aircraft and regional air traffic.[citation needed] They have in many countries not had any security check / metal detector, but such checks have been added in recent years.
Most municipal airports in Canada and the United States are of this classification. At international airports in Canada, there are domestic terminals that handle flights within Canada (flying from one Canadian city to another).
In the UK an example of a domestic airport is Plymouth Airport, which formerly operated frequent flights to other UK airports. Despite being the smallest UK airport, it was the main hub for Air Southwest until the airline pulled out of the airport in July 2011 as part of the airlines closure due in September 2011.
Several small countries do not have any public domestic airports, or even public domestic flights, e.g. Belgium.
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[edit] Regional airport
A regional airport is an airport serving traffic within a relatively small or lightly populated geographical area. A regional airport usually does not have customs and immigration facilities to process traffic between countries. In Canada regional airports usually service connections within Canada and some flights to the United States. A few U.S. regional airports, some of which actually call themselves international airports, may have customs and immigration facilities staffed on an as-needed basis, but the vast majority serve domestic traffic only.
Aircraft using these airports tend to be smaller business jets, private aircraft and regional airliners of both turboprop propelled or regional jetliner varieties. These flights usually go a shorter distance to a larger regional hub.
[edit] Europe
In European countries regional airports are usually classed as airports that don't serve the country's capital/most major city. Examples of larger regional airports include Barcelona Airport, Spain and Manchester Airport, England which are both among Europe's busiest airports and are used by both large and small planes. In countries like France, Germany and Sweden, a regional airport is an airport used with small planes, even though they go to the national hub, just like flights from larger airports. Examples of small regional airports include Coventry Airport and Worship Airport.
