The US Federal Aviation Administration has awarded $481 million in Airport Infrastructure Grants (AIG) covering 191 projects at airports in 36 states and two US territories, with the largest single award, $100 million, going to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for runway, taxiway and terminal reconstruction. The funding was announced by US Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy on 3 September 2026, timed just ahead of the Labor Day travel weekend, and is disbursed through the FAA’s ongoing AIG programme rather than as a one-off allocation.
For terminal and capital planning teams, the relevant detail is not the headline total but where the money lands. Atlanta’s $100 million share alone accounts for roughly a fifth of the entire national pot, going toward runway safety areas as well as terminal and taxiway reconstruction. The remaining $381 million is split across 190 other grants, so most individual awards are modest, several in the low single-digit millions, aimed at general aviation and regional fields rather than major hubs.
Where the largest awards go
| Airport | State | Award (USD) | Project scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International | Georgia | $100.0 million | Runway, taxiway and terminal reconstruction; runway safety areas |
| Louisville Muhammad Ali International | Kentucky | $32.5 million | Terminal reconstruction |
| San Diego International | California | $30.3 million | Terminal construction |
| Milwaukee Mitchell International | Wisconsin | $14.2 million | Taxiway construction and rehabilitation |
| El Paso International | Texas | $8.7 million | Apron rehabilitation |
| General aviation airports | Wisconsin (statewide) | $2.5 million | Terminal reconstruction, runway/taxiway rehab, snow-removal equipment building |
Source: Federal Aviation Administration, via Airport Industry-News, 3 September 2026.
The apron money at El Paso is worth flagging alongside the wider trend in landside capacity: fixed-base operators and airports alike have been expanding ramp footprints to handle growing general aviation and cargo traffic, as seen in Atlantic Aviation’s second Nashville FBO groundbreaking, which adds over 16,000 square metres of ramp space. Terminal reconstruction dollars, meanwhile, feed directly into the design-build market covered in our review of DBIA’s 2026 merit award winners, three of which were airport terminals, and into the contractor landscape mapped in our comparison of airport terminal construction firms by cost, scale and contract type.
Who this helps, and who has to wait
Large hubs with runway safety area deficiencies or ageing terminal cores, like Atlanta, Louisville and San Diego, are the clear winners this cycle, picking up grants that would otherwise take years to fund from aeronautical revenue alone. Smaller general aviation fields fare less well in absolute terms: Wisconsin’s entire GA allocation, spread across the state, is less than a third of what El Paso received for a single apron project. Operators of mid-sized and regional airports should treat the AIG programme as a recurring, competitive cycle rather than a windfall, in the way Ontario International Airport’s $4.15 million FAA grant shows can still be significant relative to a smaller airport’s capital budget.
The practical takeaway for capital planning teams: check whether your airport is on the FAA’s published list of 191 awardees, and if not, start preparing the runway, taxiway or terminal condition data the AIG programme requires well ahead of the next funding round.
Full award details are available via the Federal Aviation Administration and were first reported by Airport Industry-News.
