Pittsburgh Airports Receive $36 Million in Stimulus Funds

Nearly 3,300 U.S. airports split about $10 billion in federal economic stimulus funds last week that will provide immediate help in the middle of one of the worst downturns the aviation industry has ever seen.

Commercial passenger traffic has dropped by more than 90 percent over the past month as public health measures designed to stop the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have kept citizens at home and businesses idled.

At Pittsburgh International Airport, which usually sees about 26,000 passengers a day, daily counts have dropped into the hundreds. Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International, normally the busiest airport in the world with more than 300,000 passengers on a typical day, is now hovering around 60,000. Such a huge drop in passengers harms airports financially in myriad ways, because airports are funded through passenger revenue tied to parking, concessions, a ticket charge as well as airline gate fees.

The amount of money given to each airport was based on formulas that c