FAA Provides $566M to Upgrade Airport Runways, Other Infrastructure

Charlotte Douglas International Airport was among the larger grant recipients in this round of funding from the IIJA.

Photo courtesy Charlotte Douglas International Airport

The Federal Aviation Administration is continuing its push to roll out funding for airport infrastructure projects, with the award of $566.4 million to expand terminals, rehabilitate aprons and runways and make other capital improvements.

The latest round of FAA grants, announced on Aug. 13, includes 299 grants for airport projects in 47 states.

The grants draw their funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which provides a total of $25 billion over five years for improvements at airports and air traffic control facilities.

Top Five Grants

The largest grant in the new round is $49.6 million to Kailua/Kona Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport in Keahole, Hawaii. The funds will help to finance runway rehabilitation work.

The second-largest award is $45.4 million, to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, for structural, seismic and building system improvements at a concourse, according to the FAA.

Also on the list is Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, which is receiving $43.3 million for several projects, including construction of a de-icing pad and taxiway and to reconstruct an apron.

Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina was awarded $35.5 million to shift a runway.

Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Kentucky received $34.6 million for a 31,049-sq-ft expansion to its existing terminal.

The grants come from the IIJA’s Airport Infrastructure Grant program, which will allocate $2.9 billion a year for five years.

FAA says that so far, it has made available about $9 billion from that program to airports. Just four days earlier, FAA awarded $636.1 million in non-IIJA funds for other airport improvement projects.

Tom Ichniowski has been writing about the federal government as ENR’s Washington Bureau Chief since the George H.W. Bush administration, and he has covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.

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