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Airport Owner/Sponsor Role 35
Grant assurances cover a wide gamut of federal regulations, culled from multiple pieces of the
FAA Advisory Circulars, Executive Orders, and Federal Regulations, all designed to ensure that the
airport sponsor, and any potential tenant at the airport, comply with existing regulation (both
aviation specific and nonaviation in nature) in the development, leasing, and operation of airport
land. The FAA introduces grant assurances with the following explanation (FAA, Order 5190.6B,
2009):
When airport owners or sponsors, planning agencies, or other organizations accept funds from FAA-
administered airport financial assistance programs, they must agree to certain obligations (or assurances).
These obligations require the recipients to maintain and operate their facilities safely and efficiently and in
accordance with specified conditions. The assurances appear either in the application for Federal assistance
and become part of the final grant offer or in restrictive covenants to property deeds. The duration of these
obligations depends on the type of recipient, the useful life of the facility being developed, and other con-
ditions stipulated in the assurances.
There are a total of 39 individual grant assurances listed in Appendix A of the FAA Airport
Compliance Manual (Order 5190.6B) (see Appendix D for Web link). However, not all of these
grant assurances are directly applicable to the airport sponsor-tenant relationship, either in the
airport development context or in the more traditional lessor-lessee relationship. The following
sections present those grant assurances that have the potential to directly impact airport land
development, business arrangements, and lease structure. If the FAA deems the airport sponsor
to be in violation of any sponsor grant assurances, federal airport funding could be curtailed until
the airport is no longer in violation. A detailed discussion of airport sponsor federal grant obli-
gations and responsibilities can be found in Chapter 4 of the FAA Airport Compliance Manual
(Order 5190.6B).
3.2.1 Airport Operation Protection
Grant Assurance 5 speaks to Preserving Rights and Powers and is designed to ensure that the
airport sponsor does not enter into any agreement that will inhibit its ability to provide the core
services of a public-use airport. This is a very broad assurance that states at its outset:
It (the airport sponsor) will not take or permit any action which would operate to deprive it of any of the
rights and powers necessary to perform any or all of the terms, conditions, and assurances in the grant
agreement without the written approval of the Secretary, and will act promptly to acquire, extinguish or
modify any outstanding rights or claims of right of others which would interfere with such performance
by the sponsor.
Grant Assurance 5 also limits the transfer or disposal of land on which federal funds have been
spent without the approval of the FAA, which is addressed in greater detail under Grant Assur-
ance 31: Disposal of Land. The airport sponsor should consider all aspects of airport operations
and the many systems that are required for sustained airport operations. For example, an air-
port's utility infrastructure is vital to airport development, so failure on the airport sponsor's
part to retain legal access to its utility systems could in fact be considered a noncompliance issue.
In the case of privately owned, public-use airports, this grant assurance stipulates that in order
to be in compliance, the airport must remain in operation as a public-use facility.
3.2.2 Community Considerations
Community considerations are addressed in Grant Assurances 6, 7 and 8. These assurances
are designed to ensure that the airport sponsor accounts for the existing plans, interests, and con-
cerns of both the surrounding community (particularly local planning agencies) and current
airport users prior to entering into an airport development or leasing agreement. These consid-
erations become more prevalent in larger land development or commercial enterprise lease
agreements, but do not necessarily require action on the part of the airport sponsor in the case
