News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Passengers at the Alpena County Regional Airport wait to get their luggage from the carousel in the new terminal in this March 2020 News file photo.

ALPENA — On a per-passenger basis, only eight Michigan airports got more federal coronavirus relief money than the Alpena County Regional Airport, even though 22 airports took more of an economic hit because of the pandemic.

The county’s airport chief says the airport needs the $18 million it received for major infrastructure projects that could boost airport usage and revenue long-term.

Nationwide, Congress gave airports about $10 billion from 2020’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the first major stimulus program designed to offset the impact of government restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19. The Federal Aviation Administration doled out the money based on planned projects at each airport and earlier federal investment.

To help compare the potential impact of the CARES Act money, The News calculated the amount in stimulus funds per enplanement — or the number of times a paying passenger got on a plane — for each passenger airport in Michigan. The News looked at 2019 enplanement numbers that reflect more normal operations before the coronavirus slowed airline travel.

The Alpena airport received about $1,430 per 2019 enplanement, according to The News’ analysis of FAA data.

That’s the ninth-most among all of Michigan’s 34 passenger airports and more than any but the smallest, least-utilized airports. The Traverse City airport got about $52 per passenger and the Pellston airport about $38. The Detroit airport, the busiest in the state, got about $8 per passenger.

The big giving to the Alpena airport happened despite the fact that, relative to other Michigan airports, travel restrictions imposed in 2020 did not hit the Alpena airport particularly hard.

Alpena lost about 48% of its enplanements from 2019 to 2020, according to the FAA, compared to the statewide average 61% loss.

Alpena Airport Manager Steve Smigelski said the airport was kind of in the right place at the right time when the federal government drafted its formula for distributing the CARES Act money.

He said the formula was based on previous investment into the airport, so the airport’s recent construction of a new, $13 million terminal — of which the federal government paid 90% and the Michigan Department of Transportation another 5% — helped the airport secure more CARES Act money.

The county has until the end of 2024 to spend the money and had intended to use a good portion of it to build new infrastructure that airport officials hoped would increase revenue and reduce pressure on the county’s budget.

But a recent inspection of the Alpena runway showed a need for major repairs that could cost between $8 million and $10 million that’ll come out of the CARES Act money, Smigelski said, putting other planned projects in jeopardy.

Other proposed projects include extending the current taxiway, building a corporate hangar, about two dozen private hangars, and purchasing much-needed vehicles and equipment.

“At this point, right now, everything is canceled” because of the runway needs, Smigelski said. “It’s disappointing, because we wanted to take our general aviation services up three levels from where it is now. General aviation is really the backbone of any airport.”

For the county, the federal money for the terminal and the CARES Act money was like winning the lottery. If used wisely, improvements made with that money could increase ridership at the airport, Smigelski said, which would lower that taxpayer-cost-per-passenger number.

“Our numbers have been going up, with the exception of during the shutdown during the pandemic,” Smigelski said. “I suspect the numbers will keep going up, which is great news for us.”

The Alpena airport isn’t the worst example of big taxpayer investment in low-use airports.

The FAA gave tens of thousands of dollars to two Michigan airports that recorded zero passengers in 2019 and only a handful in 2020: Huron County Memorial Airport in Bad Axe got $30,000 and had zero 2019 enplanements and four in 2020, and the Drummond Island airport had zero 2019 enplanements and five in 2020 and got $20,000.

In total, the FAA allocated more than $255 million to passenger airports across Michigan, or about $12 for each of the 21.2 million enplanements those airports counted in 2019.

News Publisher/Editor Justin A. Hinkley contributed to this report.