Colorado Springs Airport receives $24 million relief payment

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- The Colorado Springs Airport will receive a relief payment of more than $24 million from the federal government to help with the financial losses caused by the lack of travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

However, It's not just COS who will be receiving money, the $2 trillion aid package will provide nearly $10 billion to eligible U.S Airports.

Greg Phillips, Director of Aviation for COS, said, "It's unbelievable, it's nothing that I or any other airport director in the country has ever seen, even after 9/11."

The funds will be used by airports to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus impacts, including keeping COS open for business.

Phillips said, "It will go a long way toward the primary purpose of the cares act and that is to make sure that we can take care of our employees, that we can retain all our employees."

Since the coronavirus pandemic, travel from COS has gone down immensely.

"On an average day of April 2019 we had 2,156 people go through the checkpoint each day. Yesterday, we had 128 people," Phillips said.

To receive the funding, airports must meet the established criteria, including $7.4b for commercial airports and up to $2b for primary commercial airports.

Phillips said, "2018 was a great year for us, after growing in 2016 17 and 18. Because of that, a certain amount of money was made available."

Therefore Phillips says they are extremely thankful for this grant and plan to put it into use immediately, "When we looked at the cuts we had identified and looked at the budget shortfall we anticipated that the capital projects we had to cut back, this will go a long way."