Cape airport lands $600,000 in federal aid

The Cape Girardeau Regional Airport has secured $600,000 in federal grant money to help fund improvements as a result of a new federal law even as city officials hope to land more federal dollars for air service in the coming fiscal years.

Cities such as Cape Girardeau in the past qualified for $150,000 a year in federal money for airport improvements.

Cape Girardeau’s airport and other small airports, however, had to have annual passenger boardings of at least 10,000 to secure a greater amount of federal funding.

But a new law allows airports to receive $600,000 grants if they have at least 8,000 passenger boardings in a calendar year, Cape Girardeau airport manager Bruce Loy said Monday.

The local airport had 8,891 passenger boardings in 2018, allowing it to receive the new grant money in the current fiscal year running through June 30, 2020, Loy said.

“That is the new money out there,” he said. “We didn’t know this was coming. All of a sudden, boom, we saw the opportunity to get more money.”

But city officials are eyeing an even larger grant moving forward.

Boardings at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport are on track to break the 10,000-passenger threshold this calendar year for the first time in more than two decades.

The achievement would provide Cape Girardeau with $1 million in federal funds in fiscal 2021, Loy said.

SkyWest Airlines, operating as United Express, began offering round-trip flights on 50-seat jets to Chicago on Dec. 1, 2017.

City officials have focused on marketing and promoting United Express passenger air service to Chicago in an effort to reach that threshold.

Loy credited $88,000 in state marketing funds with helping boost boardings last year. This fiscal year’s marketing effort could pay even bigger dividends, according to Loy.

The Cape Girardeau City Council approved an ordinance Monday that will allow the city to use a $170,000 state block grant from the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission to market air passenger service and conduct a passenger study.

As part of the agreement, the city will contribute $18,888 to the project, resulting in total funding of nearly $189,000, Loy said.

The study will document “where our passengers are coming from, what airport they are originating from (if not Cape Girardeau) and their final destination,” Loy wrote in an agenda report to the council.

Loy said the study will assist the city in targeting its marketing efforts.

The airport manager believes the local match is money that will be well spent. He wrote in the agenda report “an $18,888 city expenditure should net the airport $1 million.”

City officials are projecting that level of federal aid over the next several years, coupled with city tax dollars, could finance major airport improvements, including a new terminal.

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