Arizona’s Scottsdale Airport has received more than $5.4m in FAA grants to improve efficiency, safety, and capacity.
The project will be funded by two grants – $4.7m from Airport Improvement Grant funds, and $763,000 from Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation. The funding will be used to construct an aircraft run-up area, rebuild part of the taxiway and taxiway connectors in line with the latest FAA safety standards, and rehabilitate a taxiway connector.
Scottsdale Airport’s busy season sees spikes in business jet operations. Bizjets departing with instrument flight rules have a certain window to depart the airport when they receive clearance from the FAA tower. With a single taxiway and aircraft lined up to depart, however, they are unable to taxi around smaller aircraft. In some instances, aircraft waiting to depart obstruct others and delay their departure.
“This causes a bottleneck of aircraft at our runway end,” said aviation director Gary P Mascaro. “These grants support the importance of improving these capacity issues at Scottsdale Airport.”
Aviation staff, in collaboration with Mead & Hunt (the airport’s on-call engineer) and the FAA ATC staff, designed the project to introduce five aircraft run-up positions at the north end of the runway. This provides adequate spacing for aircraft and allows the ATC Tower to efficiently clear aircraft for departure.
The project will start in the autumn, with completion expected by the end of the year.
