COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Easterwood Airport, owned by the Texas A&M System, has seen a 184% increase in the numbers of passengers since 2020. To create a safer more efficient airport and airfield, the Federal Aviation Administration has granted $5.9 million to Easterwood to make improvements set to being in January 2022.
Director of security at the Easterwood Airport Ryan Clements said this is one of the few projects out on the airfield that will not affect any of the airplanes because the large airplanes can't even use it [taxiway Alpha] right now, so they're not going to miss it.
“Typically, when we do projects on the airfield, we're always having to do a night project schedule around the commercial planes,” Clements said, “This one should be straightforward simple.”
Clements said they’ve been trying to get this grant for about two years, but this isn’t the only project they want to work on.
We always have a shortlist and a long list of projects for the airport,” Clements said, “We're always trying to improve the airport, and we are just trying to keep up with the Bryan College Station area growing as fast as it is.”
Clements said what’s nice about the grant process is that they already know what they need and what needs to be done.
“The box is checked and the grant is approved,” Clements said, “Now we got to start going on with the next steps of finding the contractors and all those surveys that need to be done, just the next step in the line.”
Clements said passengers at Easterwood won’t see much of a change and it won’t delay or impede any of their commercial aircraft.
“Sometimes the public sees a lot of the improvements that our airports make, it's very public-facing,” Clements said, “This is an example of an improvement to the airports that the public really won't notice and gets to see, but it's just another example how we are always growing with Bryan/College Station as the community grows, we're growing, even though you don't see it.”