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General Aviation Strategic Business Plan

The general aviation airports, except for Quonset Airport, are nestled inside of neighborhoods. Maintaining a balance between promoting aviation growth and development while being sensitive to neighboring community concerns is an ongoing operations and communications commitment for RIAC.

RIAC recently completed a strategic business planning process for all five of Rhode Island’s general aviation airports. To accomplish this multi-year undertaking, RIAC formed an internal task force comprised of experts in the fields of infrastructure, planning, finance, legal and property management and relied on consultants to help evaluate business development opportunities and potential infrastructure needs.

The key components of the completed effort formulate an overall strategic business plan for the state’s general aviation airports which include:
  • A ten-year Infrastructure Plan which included the evaluation of building conditions and priorities. The plan identifies scope, budget, schedule and possible funding sources at each airport.
  • A ten-year Pavement Plan that evaluated and adopted a pavement management schedule for each airport.
  • An aerial survey that identified current and potential airspace obstructions for each runway end, as well as plans for obstruction removal.
  • A ten-year Business Plan that evaluated economic development conditions and opportunities at all general aviation airports. This plan identified available properties that can be developed for shovel ready projects at GA airports.
The published plan provides a predictable and equitable roadmap for stakeholders at each of the state’s five General Aviation airports, and identifies priority projects for the next decade of capital improvements. The effort is expected to result in the investment of approximately $98 million into local airports over the next decade, which is estimated to produce an economic impact of $193 million for the State of Rhode Island.