Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin announced over $15 million in grant money for small and rural Illinois airports yesterday from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA. Under the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program, the money will be used for various airport projects around the state to update and modernize infrastructure.
The federal investment to the state of Illinois is through the State Block Grant Program, which is a sub-component of the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program that supports projects at non-primary airports within the state. Non-primary airports include commercial service airports that have at least 2,500 and no more than 10,000 passenger boardings each year, reliever airports, and general aviation airports similar to airports in Springfield, Jacksonville, and Pittsfield.
