Kissimmee Gateway Airport plans upgrades to support larger planes, international travel

Kissimmee Gateway Airport in Osceola County is receiving $21,108,836 from the Federal Aviation Administration to expand Taxiway A to accommodate larger planes and international travelers.

Official response and confirmed impact

“Because of the size of aircraft that we’ve been bringing into the airport, you have to have at least 500 operations of a special size of aircraft, and we’ve been exceeding that now for a few years,” Shaun J.

Germolus, director of aviation at Kissimmee Gateway Airport, said.

“That taxiway project was going to be two different phases, a north phase one and the south phase two,” Germolus said.

“But the recent reauthorization allows general aviation airports to receive 95% federal funding for projects like this.

And so they talked us into combining it into one project, and so we were able to do that.” Officials said combining the phases saved $450,000 locally, which can now be used toward the tower.

Incident under investigation

“To meet the design standards of the FAA, we need to move that over.” The funding will also cover the replacement of runway lighting, which the airport says is ready to be replaced.

The FAA recently granted the airport over $12 million for a new air traffic control tower, a project the airport has been trying to build for years.