How Airport Sponsors and Their Consultants Build and Submit a 5-Year ACIP

How sponsors and consultants build an airport capital improvement plan (ACIP)

An airport capital improvement plan (ACIP) is the prioritized, multi-year project program a public-use airport sponsor maintains and submits to the FAA so that AIP-eligible development can be forecast, justified, and funded in sequence. The FAA describes the ACIP as the basis for distributing AIP funds and asks sponsors to submit a capital improvement program covering upcoming years; see the FAA guidance on sponsor submittal of the Capital Improvement Program. In practice the ACIP is rarely built in isolation by airport staff — general-aviation and smaller commercial-service sponsors typically rely on an AEC consultant to assemble condition data, scope projects, sequence them, and prepare the FAA submittal.

This guide is written at the decision and software layer — not to re-explain AIP eligibility rules the FAA already owns, but to show how sponsors and their consultants actually produce a defensible 5-year ACIP, where the manual spreadsheet workflow breaks down, and where modern capital planning software changes the economics. The aviation niche still runs largely on MicroPAVER/PAVEAIR exports stitched into spreadsheets, which makes it one of the clearest cases for an AI-native planning layer on top of existing FAA pavement tools.

How the ACIP connects to AIP grants and the FAA submittal

The ACIP is the funding spine of airport development: it is the document that tells the FAA which projects a sponsor intends to pursue, in what order, and on what schedule, so that AIP entitlement and discretionary funds can be programmed. A project that is not in the ACIP is generally not positioned for an AIP grant in that cycle. That single fact is why ACIP quality matters: a poorly justified or out-of-sequence program leaves entitlement money unclaimed and discretionary requests unscored.

The submittal cycle, at the decision layer, looks like this:

1. Refresh condition and demand data. Pull current pavement condition (PCI) from the airport’s pavement management system, plus any updates from the master plan, ALP, and safety/standards reviews.
2. Scope and sequence projects. Translate needs into discrete AIP-eligible projects — runway and taxiway rehabilitation, lighting, apron, safety-area, and standards work — and order them by urgency and dependency.
3. Justify and prioritize. Attach condition-based and safety-based justification to each project so the FAA and the sponsor can defend the sequence.
4. Submit the 5-year program. File the ACIP with the FAA regional/district office on the annual cycle, then maintain it as a rolling plan as projects are funded and completed.

Is a pavement management system required for airports?

An airport pavement management system (APMS) is a structured program for surveying, scoring, and forecasting airfield pavement condition so that maintenance and rehabilitation are timed cost-effectively — and for AIP-funded pavement, the FAA requires sponsors to use one. The requirement and methodology are set out in FAA Advisory Circular 150/5380-7B, which defines the pavement condition index (PCI) approach and supports the FAA’s PAVEAIR system. The APMS is the data engine of a credible ACIP: the pavement projects in the program should trace directly to measured PCI and a deterioration forecast, not to anecdote.

This is where most ACIP workflows strain. PCI surveys typically run on a multi-year cycle, and between surveys the sponsor needs to forecast where pavement is heading to decide whether to preserve now or reconstruct later. A static condition snapshot cannot answer the “cost of waiting” question that drives sound treatment timing — see pavement management software and the case for AI deterioration modeling over static condition ratings.

What projects populate a 5-year ACIP — and how to sequence them

A 5-year ACIP is sequenced, not just listed: the near-term years carry funded, fully justified projects, while the outer years hold anticipated needs that signal future funding demand to the FAA. The categories that typically fill an airport sponsor’s program fall into a few buckets, and each carries a different justification basis:

• Pavement preservation and rehabilitation — runway, taxiway, and apron projects justified by measured PCI and a deterioration forecast. These are where treatment timing — preserve now versus reconstruct later — drives the most cost.
• Safety and standards — runway safety areas, markings, signage, and obstruction removal, often the highest-priority projects because they tie to design-standard compliance.
• Airfield lighting and NAVAIDs — edge lighting, guidance signs, and electrical-vault work justified by age and reliability.
• Capacity and planning — master-plan updates, ALP updates, and environmental work that enable later development.

Sequencing is where a defensible ACIP earns its keep. Two projects with the same condition score can rank differently once dependency (you cannot rebuild a taxiway while it is the only access route), criticality (primary runway versus a secondary one), and the cost of waiting are weighed. That is a prioritization problem, and doing it consistently across the whole airfield — year after year, defensibly — is exactly where software beats a spreadsheet.

Airfield taxiway and apron pavement — the runway, taxiway, and apron projects an ACIP sequences.

Two projects with the same condition score can rank differently once dependency, criticality, and the cost of waiting are weighed — exactly where software beats a spreadsheet.

Manual ACIP workflow vs. AI capital planning software

Airport capital improvement plan software is the planning layer that turns PCI and demand data into a forecasted, prioritized, fundable 5-year ACIP — replacing the spreadsheet-and-PAVEAIR-export workflow most sponsors and consultants still use. The table contrasts the two at the decision layer.

InfraMind sits on top of the airport’s existing pavement and GIS data — it consumes PCI and condition records rather than replacing the inspection tools that produce them — and adds the owner-side decision layer. For the aviation vertical view, see capital planning for airports; for the end-to-end method, see how to build a capital improvement plan.