FAA Announces New Round of Airport Funding For FY2022

Yesterday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a new round of recipients of its Airport Improvement Grants.  This not a new program, it has been in effect for over 20 years.

Information regarding the receiving airport, amount granted, and the improvement project for which the grant was awarded is available on the FAA’s website going back to 1996. The FAA made an interactive handbook available on their website for airport owners and operators interested in securing an AIP grant and outlines the criteria for who may qualify, eligible projects, statutory basis for grant assurance, funding available, and applicable rules.

From 2005 to 2019 AIP funding has hovered around $3 billion, but in 2020, jumped almost 400% to a record $13.6 billion. Perhaps, in the authors opinion, the slowdown due to COVID-19 encouraged or incentivized airports across the United States to get some sorely needed projects completed. Fiscal year 2021 saw decline in AIP awards to $10.3 billion, but this is still good news for the U.S. aviation community.

Some examples of projects funded by AIR grants include: installation of weather reporting system, NAVAIDS; rehabilitation or construction of building, runway, taxiway, access road, fuel farm, obstruction marking, perimeter fencing, emergency generator, and drainage; acquisition of snow removal equipment, aircraft rescue and fire fighting (ARFF) vehicle/equipment, easements/land for approaches/development; studies/surveys for area navigation (RNAV) approach, noise abatement, environmental assessment and so on.

The program, which is a part of the FAA’s National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems (NPIAS) covers some 3,300 existing and proposed airports in our National Airspace System (NAS), their current roles, amount, and type of development that eligible for this funding over the next 5 years. Every two years, the FAA is required to publish this information, and has been doing so since 2001, with published awardee history going back to 1996. 

FMI: https://www.faa.gov/airports/aip