Yeah small airports are great. Where I'm at now the local airport is pretty small, flights only go to/from Stockholm. They're rarely even full I could probably just show up and grab a ticket like a fancy bus half an hour before takeoff. Sometimes there is a little stall selling local honey that's just honor system nobody operates it and there isn't any camera or anything just a wooden table and a paper with payment info lol

Medium sized airports are the problem. Airports for big cities can handle tons of people. But you have an event in a mis-size city and it's a disaster.