The Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA) has been awarded $72.16 million in federal funding during the year of 2026, marking the second-highest level of federal funding in the authority’s history.
This federal funding comes from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Airport Terminal Program and Congressionally Directed Spending.
“This level of funding is a credit to our people,” said IAA Executive Director Mario Rodriguez. “It’s due to their continued coordination with the FAA and our commitment in using federal dollars for critical infrastructure projects to improve the public assets across the IAA airport system.”
The IAA owns and operates Indiana’s largest airport system in the Indianapolis metropolitan area. In addition to the Indianapolis International Airport (IND), its facilities include Eagle Creek Airpark, Hendricks County Airport-Gordon Graham Field, Indianapolis Regional Airport and Metropolitan Airport.
According to a statement from IND, Rodriguez said federal grants help the IAA to preserve existing airport infrastructure, along with enhancing airfield safety and long-term operations across the IAA’s reliever airport system.
The IAA anticipates the grants will create, in total across all funded projects, approximately 1,200 local construction jobs, and deliver a nearly $143 million economic impact to the Central Indiana region. An estimated 90% of those jobs will be with local companies.
According to a press release, $46.82 million of the grant will support the new central baggage handling system at IND.
“We’ve been working in close coordination with the FAA over the past three years to secure funding for this highly complex project,” said Jarod Klaas, IAA senior director of planning and development. “This follows our historical approach: match the right projects to the right programs at the right time — and stay in close step with the FAA from planning through design and construction.”
Additionally, IND’s Taxiway P Reconstruction Phase 2 project received two FAA grants totaling $17.98 million. Across design and both construction phases, $27.14 million in FAA funding has been secured for the Taxiway P project.
“This is the last year of new money from the 2021 federal infrastructure law, so we planned ahead,” said Rodriguez. “We stretched every dollar from prior years and combined it with other funding sources, and that paid off with substantial investments in our reliever airports.”
In 2021, the IAA received a $56 million Airport Improvement Program grant — the largest single federal grant in the airport’s history and the largest awarded to any U.S. airport in that funding round — which brought the total grants received that year to a record-setting total of $82.9 million. In 2024, the IAA received a $26.6 million grant, one of the largest Airport Infrastructure Grants awarded nationwide in that round.
For more information, visit ind.com.
Contact Staff Writer Malik Simon at 317-762-7847.
Malik Simon is a Staff Writer for the Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper. Originally from Memphis, TN, he graduated from Mississippi Valley State University with a Bachelor of Arts in General Studies concentrating on journalism. Before joining the Recorder, he wrote for the Devil’s Gazette newspaper at MVSU and served as a freelance content and video editor. He seeks to use media to help communities flourish through literacy and factual reporting.
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