Bill would fund airport terminals and air traffic upgrades

The Transportation Secretary would offer grants to help airports repair or modernize their main terminals. Grants could go to at most three airports that were medium-size hubs when the bill became law and still use a main passenger terminal built before 1990. The airport must not have completed a full redevelopment or replacement of its main terminal on or after January 1, 1990. Its project must be in the airport's capital plan, have completed environmental review, and have entered final design. Federal funds could cover no more than 90% of project costs. The $10 billion would become available in fiscal year 2027 and remain available until spent.

The FAA would receive $10.1 billion for air traffic control work and could move money among specified uses. The funding covers control facilities, shared controller workstations, cloud systems, and tools for managing air traffic flow. The FAA could move the 2027 money among the four listed uses. It could also move money among air traffic control funding categories named in an earlier law and would have to describe those transfers in reports required under that law. The $10.1 billion would become available in fiscal year 2027 and remain available until spent.

The FAA would receive $2 billion for control facilities and $8 billion for airport grants. The grants include $3 billion for eligible airport projects and $5 billion for aging terminal projects at airports that qualify under federal grant rules. The $3 billion in general airport grants would be free of the usual distribution formulas and program spending cap. If awarded, aging-terminal grants would cover 80% of costs at large and medium hubs and 95% at small hubs, nonhub airports, and nonprimary airports. These funds would become available in fiscal year 2027 and remain available until spent.