Conservative reporting shortlist

Public airports with funding—but very little recorded activity

Open public-use airports receiving at least $500,000 in FY2025 AIP grants, shortlisted using FAA TAF operations, FAA based-aircraft data and Sprinkle’s fixed tracking window.

Sources: FAA AIP, TAF and NASR; Sprinkle tracked flightsLoading data date…Tracking window: 5 May–20 July 2026

Important: These are reporting candidates—not proof that an airport is unused, wasteful or abandoned. TAF values are annual FAA planning data; Sprinkle tracking does not capture every general-aviation movement. Contact the airport and FAA before publication.

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Every row passes all four published thresholds: ≥$500,000 in FY2025 grants, ≤10 based aircraft, ≤1,000 FY2025 TAF operations and ≤5 Sprinkle-tracked movements.

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Methodology

How candidates were selected

Aggregated every FY2025 FAA AIP grant by airport location identifier.
Kept open public-use airports in the FAA NASR cycle effective 9 July 2026.
Joined FY2025 baseline operations and based-aircraft values from the FAA’s published 2025 Terminal Area Forecast dataset.
Counted arrivals and departures in 4.58 million Sprinkle flight legs observed from 5 May to 20 July 2026.
Applied the four fixed thresholds shown above; missing FAA values were excluded, never treated as zero.

Editorial use

What still needs checking

Ask each airport about traffic not visible to ADS-B tracking, the age and basis of its TAF values, emergency or community roles, grant project timing, seasonal operations and locally based aircraft. Remote-airport infrastructure can be important even at low traffic levels.

Suggested source line: “Sprinkle analysis of FAA FY2025 AIP grants, FAA Terminal Area Forecast and NASR data, and Sprinkle-tracked flight movements.”