Syracuse Hancock International Airport has secured a $13 million federal grant to expand its aircraft deicing facility, bringing total federal funding for the project to $37.7 million against a $46.2 million construction cost.

U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced the award, which the FAA distributed through its Airport Improvement Program as part of a broader $33.7 million package for airport facility and equipment upgrades across Upstate New York.

The expansion targets one of the most schedule-sensitive bottlenecks in winter operations at snowbelt airports. Deicing pads spray glycol-based solution onto wings and control surfaces to strip snow, ice and frost before departure. When pad capacity runs short, aircraft queue with engines and departure slots burning — a constraint that compounds quickly during lake-effect snow events, which regularly hit the Syracuse region in winter.

The funding arithmetic now stands at $37.7 million in federal grants against the $46.2 million project total. Syracuse Hancock previously collected $24.7 million in awards from other federal programs, including two grants of $3 million each and a single $18.7 million award. The airport will fund the remaining $8.5 million itself, roughly 18% of project cost.

Construction is scheduled to begin by the end of the year.

For carriers serving Syracuse — a market anchored by Delta, American, United, Southwest and Allegiant operations — additional deicing positions translate directly into winter dispatch reliability. A single deicing pad serving multiple aircraft in sequence caps departure throughput during peak morning banks regardless of how many gates an airport operates. Expanded pad capacity shortens that queue, protecting both on-time performance and aircraft utilization on downstream rotations.

The Airport Improvement Program, funded largely through aviation trust fund receipts rather than general taxation, remains the primary federal vehicle for airfield infrastructure at non-hub and small-hub airports. Awards of this size for deicing infrastructure reflect the operational weight northern-tier airports place on winter resilience, where a single icing-related hold can cascade across an operator's network for the rest of the day.

Syracuse Hancock has not disclosed a completion date for the expanded facility, but with construction starting by year-end, the airport positions itself to bring additional deicing capacity online ahead of future winter seasons.