Gerald R Ford International Airport Authority

Gerald R Ford International Airport Authority, a tax-exempt nonprofit airport operator based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, receives federal grant funding as a recipient under Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airport Improvement Program grants (CFDA 20.106) and a single Other Transaction Agreement from the Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration. The organization does not hold prime federal contracts and competes in full-and-open procurement without small-business set-asides.

The airport authority's federal footprint is heavily skewed toward FAA grant work. Of 37 total awards in the source data, 27 are FAA Airport Improvement Program grants from the Great Lakes Region, four additional FAA awards fall under related programs, and five awards come from TSA. The combined potential value across all awards is $1.8 million, but the organization has obligated $202.7 million across its grant portfolio — a reflection of the grant program's structure in which potential-value figures track annual allocations while actual project costs accumulate across multi-year execution phases. Grant work spans taxiway construction and rehabilitation, runway lighting reconstruction, terminal expansion (adding 72,000 to 70,500 square feet of capacity across multiple phases), snow removal equipment building expansion, aircraft rescue and firefighting facility reconstruction, wildlife and wetland mitigation, environmental remediation of aqueous film forming foam and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and utility infrastructure for terminal support. Recent representative grants include a $15.05 million FAA project grant (award date June 5, 2026) for taxiway construction and wildlife mitigation with completion scheduled for June 4, 2030; a $9.564 million grant (September 9, 2024) for aircraft rescue and firefighting building reconstruction completing September 8, 2028; a $6.386 million grant (July 26, 2025) for terminal expansion construction administration completing July 25, 2029; and a $6.022 million grant (September 5, 2023) for runway lighting reconstruction completing September 4, 2027. The airport authority also received a $336,811 TSA Other Transaction Agreement (award August 11, 2021, completed August 10, 2023) for pre-design support on inline checked baggage inspection system construction. Activity has remained relatively flat at three to four awards per year across 2023–2025, with one award recorded in 2026 to date. A single sub-award relationship exists: the State of Michigan as prime grantee for a February 2023 project award. The organization operates Gerald R Ford International Airport, which provides over 100 daily flights across 30-plus routes and has received over $90 million in cumulative FAA funding for infrastructure upgrades since the grant program's inception.