WASHINGTON – Multiple Maine airports will receive more than $13.6 million in federal funding for infrastructure improvements through the Federal Aviation Administration’s Fiscal Year 2026 Airport Improvement Program, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins announced.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the $13,647,939 in funding will support runway, apron, planning, and land-acquisition projects at airports across the state.
“As Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I will continue working to ensure we make investments that benefit the State of Maine, allowing airports across our state to make much-needed improvements, some of which are long overdue. Ensuring that transportation needs across the state are met is a priority of mine,” said Senator Collins. “A key focus of our negotiations over the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law in 2021 was addressing outdated infrastructure at our nation’s airports. That is why we included historic investments in airport grant programs so that municipal, regional, and international airports and jetports across the country can provide safer and more efficient travel. Today’s funding announcement builds on those investments.”
The largest award will go to Millinocket Municipal Airport, which will receive $6,845,251 to reconstruct 3,200 feet of Runway 11/29. The project is intended to maintain pavement integrity and minimize foreign object debris.
Knox County Regional Airport will receive $3,618,016 to rehabilitate and reconstruct portions of the main apron pavement that have reached the end of their useful life.
Portland International Jetport will receive $2,620,106 to design and reconstruct 17,600 square yards of terminal apron pavement that has also reached the end of its useful life.
Wiscasset Municipal Airport will receive $468,816 to reconstruct 4,100 square yards of main apron pavement.
Oxford County Regional Airport will receive $53,000 to update its existing airport layout plan, while Presque Isle International Airport will receive $42,750 to acquire two acres of land for future development.
The funding comes through the FAA’s Airport Improvement Program, which Collins helped author.
Since joining the Appropriations Committee in 2009, Collins has helped secure more than $1 billion in competitive transportation grants for Maine. Over the past five years, she has also secured more than $25.7 million in Congressionally Directed Spending for airport improvement projects in Presque Isle, Fryeburg, Machias, and Brunswick.
Collins was also one of 10 senators who negotiated the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided $15 billion for federal airport improvement grant programs.
Will Mills take credit for this, just like she did with the hospital money?
“Competitive?”
Some of the numbers here make your eyes water considering the airport involved and the scope of the job. And those are figures based on competition.
I used to track the annual grants coming to Brunswick Executive Airport and stopped doing so when the totals, as I recall, got up in the $30 million range. I spent lots of time driving around the airport from time to time, and with the exception of some private business jets every now and then, the airport seems to specialize in single engine private planes of the most basic level. I never saw more than a half dozen tied down in the “terminal area.”
The system used to track airport use is designed to inflate actual use, especially if you have a flight school on premise, and students do repetitive touch and goes, in which they use no more than 1,000 feet of the 8,000 ft plus runways, if had to guess.
And the apron areas are colossally huge, having been designed for squadrons of P-3’s back when. Maintaining the totality of them could best be described as absurd. If you know anyone who lives in earshot of the airport, ask them how many times a day they hear aircraft arrival and takeoff.