The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it will award US$8 billion in grants to keep U.S. airport workers employed, construction projects going and help U.S. airports recover from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

In a statement, the US FAA said the funding for the grants comes from the American Rescue Plan Act enacted on March 11, 2021.

“The Airport Rescue Grants keep workers employed and help the aviation sector recover as more Americans get vaccinated and begin traveling again,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“These grants are part of the Administration’s commitment to build back a better and safer transportation system throughout our country.”

The funding is expected to provide economic relief to eligible commercial service, reliever, and general aviation airports.

 FAA Administrator Steve Dickson said the “FAA is committed to working with the aviation industry as it recovers from the impacts of the pandemic.”

These airport rescue grants, he noted, also provide needed support to our nation’s airports as we recover from the pandemic’s impacts.

Under the Airport Rescue Grants program, primary commercial service airports will share approximately US$6.5 billion based on the number of annual boardings; an additional US$800 million will be available to primary commercial service airports for providing relief to in-terminal airport concessions from rent and minimum annual guarantees including US$640 million for relief to small concessions and US$160 million for relief to large airport concessions.

Non-primary commercial service and general aviation airports will share US$100 million based on their airport catergories and the remaining funds will be used to cover an airport’s cost-share portion on grants through the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program as well as the supplemental discretionary grants.

Meanwhile, while most of the funding will be funnelled towards efforts to drive passenger aviation, some US$227 million of the said aviation grant will be awarded to 120 airports for cargo operations.