Airports are an example of an industry with negative and positive externalities. An airport is a non-rivalrous, excludable resource. It is therefore a public good rather than a common pool resource. Once an airport is built, its use by one person doesn't make it less valuable for others, so it is non-rivalrous. But people can be excluded from it if they are unable to purchase tickets.

The transaction between the airlines and the passengers affects those who live in the vicinity of the airport through pollution. Air traffic congestion is a negative externality that impacts other passengers. I found two articles regarding the externalities of airports.

Plane Pollution by David Holzman appeared in the Dec. 1997 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives [105 (12): 1300-1305]. He argues that airplanes are major sources of noise, water and air pollution. Because jets last 25-30 years it is difficult to mandate better fuel efficiency. Glycols are used for de-icing aircraft, and contribute significantly to water pollution. 45 of the 50 busiest airports in the US are within 3 miles of a major waterway. Because of increasing air passenger travel, it is of great importance to address these issues now.

Network Effects, Congestion Externalities, and Air Traffic Delays: Or Why Not All Delays Are Evil by Christopher Mayer and Todd Sinai appeared in the Nov. 2003 issue of the American Economic Review [93(4): 1194-1215]. The extract reads:
"We examine two factors that explain air traffic congestion: network benefits due to hubbing and congestion externalities. While both factors impact congestion, we find that the hubbing effect dominates empirically. Hub carriers incur most of the additional travel time from hubbing, primarily because they cluster their flights in short time spans to provide passengers as many potential connections as possible with a minimum of waiting time. Non-hub flights at the same hub airports operate with minimal additional travel time. These results suggests that an optimal congestion tax might have a relatively small impact on the flight patterns at hub airports."

The authors argue that air traffic delays are on the increase, so it is important to determine the reasons why. Flights leaving from hubs require an extra 4 to 7 minutes and flights arriving at a hub require 3.5 to 4.5 extra minutes. Nearly all the delays incurred by hubbing are borne by the hub airline itself. Non-hub airlines are minimally impacted except at the largest hubs. The hub carrier receives large network benefits that increase with the number of markets served from a hub. These benefits encourage the airline to launch even more flights at hubbing times, regardless of the delays to its own flights. Congestion pricing may not be appropriate at airports where FAA limits already control congestion to some degree.

Ideally you should have access to these resources at a library near you. If you can tell me which journals you can access, I will focus on those in the future. You need to be able to read these articles yourself in their entirety.