What is a 'designated reliever' airport?

[Matthew]

For several reasons I've been playing with the idea of a trip to Memphis. Rather than land at KMEM I was looking at KAWM (West Memphis). In one of the airport directories I have it shows KAWM as a 'designated reliever'.

I've seen the term before, but haven't had any reason to find out what it really means.

Any help would be appreciated,

Matt

 

[Brian Austin]

The bathrooms are open 24/7.

(No, not really. I don't know)

 

[mikea]

This means it is on the list of aiports in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) which identifies more than 3,300 airports that are significant to national air transportation and thus eligible to receive Federal grants under the [font=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Airport Improvement Program[/font] (AIP). In this case AWM is considered vital to reducing airport congestion at MEM.

Meigs was one. It even got AIP funds which guaranteed it had to stay open for 25 years.

Then a discovery was made: Duh Mare's brother was U.S. Secretary of Commerce,...so if duh city wanted to repay the funds (out of the same airport fees that eventually paid to bulldoze the airport) then the "25 years" could be changed to "next Monday."