I'm certainly no expert on flying , but I was once in a small corporate plane which did not have enough seating for all the passangers so somebody (I volunteered) sat in the co-pilot's seat.
We were going from Memphis to Atlanta, but we were landing at one of the outlying airports , not the main one in Atlanta. The pilot had his instructions, and a map, and was doing all the pilot things talking to air traffic control etc. Turns out, another of the passengers knew a little about flying and was looking at a map. The pilot was taking us to the wrong outlying airport ! The pilot mad a correction and we actually finally landed where we should have.
The point of all that is that it is the pilot (or co-pilot) who is responsible where the plane goes, not air traffic control; they only tell the pilot what heading he needs to fly to get to where the pilot tells him he is going.
Alabama Son, I agree - I would much prefer a light rail from Muscle Shoals to Huntsville with a stop at the airport, but I know that will not happen.
BTW, neither will stopping the subsidies , once a city gets that fed money rollin' in, they don't ever want to give it up.