Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s proposed budget includes $31 million to support the ongoing relocation project of the Mobile International Airport.

The state money, if adopted in a final spending plan by the Alabama Legislature, will join local and county commitments approved within the past year supporting a $330 million terminal that represents a complete shift in commercial aviation for Mobile by 2025.

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Under the plan, the Mobile Airport Authority will oversee a swap of commercial aviation from Mobile Regional Airport in west Mobile to a new five-gate terminal at the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley. Officials broke ground on the new terminal in December.

The new terminal’s location is the key to its support from public officials: A mere seven miles from downtown Mobile, it is also close to the Port of Mobile, which boasts five rail lines and is adjacent to the ship channel that is undergoing a massive dredging project to accommodate larger ships.

The airport will also be close to Interstate 10, as compared to Mobile Regional which is miles away from the nearest interstate. The Brookley-based airport terminal will also be close to the new Mobile River Bridge that, when completed before the end of the decade, will connect Interstate 10 and the Bayway and into Baldwin County where airport officials anticipate more travelers in the years ahead.

“Mobile is perfectly situated to reclaim the lead as the Gulf Coast’s regional hub of business and travel,” Ivey said in a statement to AL.com Wednesday. “The relocation of air service from west Mobile to Brookley is the final spark to ignite the long-anticipated economic expansion of downtown Mobile that will reverberate throughout southwest Alabama and beyond.”

Ivey included the airport funding in a budget plan unveiled Tuesday in Montgomery. It is included within $164.5 million of funding for the Alabama Department of Commerce earmarked for special purposes. The funding, if OK’d by the Legislature, will be included in a budget that takes effect on October 1.

“This funding is a direct investment in that growth and will pay tremendous dividends to enhance coastal Alabamians’ quality of life,” Ivey said.

The airport’s top official believes the state funding will make the overall project more attractive to federal officials during future grant considerations.

“I think the overall position of the (Federal Aviation Administration) is they are more excited by programs they know will get to the finish line and those where the local governments have skin in the game,” said Chris Curry, president of the Mobile Airport Authority. “With the governor’s investment, we have skin in the game from the city, county and the state. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

The money will be added to $30 million dedicated by the Mobile City Council last summer, and $15 million approved last year by the Mobile County Commission to support transportation projects into the airport complex.

“At all levels of government, city, county and state, and federal elected leaders have seen the value of this transition and what I could mean for Mobile and the entire region,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said in a statement. “With Governor Ivey’s pledged contribution of $31 million, the Mobile Airport Authority’s vision to create a true international airport in downtown Mobile comes that much closer to fruition.”

The city, for years, has discussed the airport swap and has utilized federal funds to undergo studies assessing the relocation of commercial aviation services to Brookley.

A master plan lays out the strategy, and the project’s highlight includes a new five-gate terminal and parking garage that will enable the city to swap commercial air service from Mobile Regional to Brookley.

A timetable on the opening of the new terminal will likely not be known until later this fall, Curry said, when the project’s design team is expected to be 60% complete with its work.

Curry said the goal, though, is to continue moving forward on future additions spelled out within the master plan that includes, among other things, a 12-gate international terminal. When completed, an airport of that size would be on par with Pensacola International Airport, which has a dozen gates, and the 15-gate Savannah International Airport in Georgia.

Another goal with the airport swap is to make Mobile more competitive for commercial air travel with Pensacola and Gulfport-Biloxi. According to the most recent Federal Aviation Administration data, Mobile Regional ranked No. 165 with 263,007 enplanements, while Gulfport had 317,112.

Northwest Beaches Airport in Panama City, Florida, opened to commercial flights in 2010, and had close to 800,000 enplanements last year.

Pensacola International was at 1.17 million, which would make it busier for commercial flights than any other airport in Alabama.

“Our goal is to complete the master plan that we published (in 2020) that has probably $500 million worth of projects in it and that includes the terminal and parking garage project,” Curry said. “As we move forward, every year there is more opportunity for public engagement especially with the Federal Aviation Administration that has allocated some funds, but we feel there will be an opportunity to allocate even more given the response from our local delegation, the city, county and state.”

Curry said a few of the federal programs that offer grant funding through the FAA are being targeted for federal support:

Airport Terminals Program

Curry said the hope is for the airport authority to receive consideration from the FAA on several grant programs, including the $5 billion Airport Terminals Program created through the bipartisan infrastructure program that President Joe Biden signed into law in 2021.

The second of five rounds of $1 billion in grant money was dished out last year, and only three Alabama-based airports received an allocation. Huntsville International Airport got $10 million – short of the $27 million the airport requested – to add escalators and elevators and other improvements at its terminal. The H.L. “Sonny” Callahan Airport in Fairhope got $2 million in federal funding to build a new general aviation terminal building. Another $1.3 million went to the Demopolis Regional Airport to make upgrades to its terminal building.

The Airport Authority had requested $30 million from the bipartisan infrastructure program last year but did not receive funding.

Airport Improvement Program

The FAA’s Airport Improvement Program (AIP) is also a possibility, Curry said, for future funding. The latest AIP program, announced March 17, included $421,875 to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport to acquire a rescue and firefighting vehicle and $256,186 to Cullman Regional Airport to make improvements to the airport’s apron.

Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport received $1.9 million in AIP funds to reconstruct runway lighting.

Mobile International received $4.8 million through the AIP program in 2021 to make apron improvements at the Brookley facility.

Military Airport Program

Mobile International Airport was selected in 2021 into the Military Airport Program administered by the FAA. The program provides federal funds to assist civil airport sponsors of current joint-use military airfields or former military airports.

Funding through this program helps to rebuild parking lots, hangars, access roads and terminal and cargo buildings, among other things.

The airport’s roots are in military service, with Brookley Field serving as a site of the Southeast Army Air Deport and the Mobile Air Service Command during World War II. During the war, Brookley was Mobile’s largest employer.

Brookley served as an U.S. Air Force base until its closure in 1969.