51 AirportImprovement.com July | August 2026 OPERATIONS SPI time when Springfield was a vibrant hub for regional point-to-point travel. In the TWA era, the airport had up to 10 flights a day to St. Louis, and non-stop service to Chicago’s Meigs Field provided a vital link for the state legislature and legal community. But flight service at SPI dwindled when Meigs Field was famously dismantled in the middle of the night, and airline mergers shifted traffic toward large hubs like O’Hare and Midway. More recently, the state has made significant investments in “higher-speed” rail, which requires significant land-based infrastructure, grade crossings and vehicle-rail separation. Advanced Air Mobility offers a vertical alternative to terrestrial-based systems, notes Hanna. By utilizing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, SPI can potentially restore lost corridors to nearby cities with greater efficiency and lower infrastructure costs than rail, he adds. “Springfield could provide every single aspect of that inner-urban lift,” Hanna explains. “We have the space to grow out. We have the space to build. We figured Springfield would be a node in a bigger network. But maybe regionally, we have a hub in Springfield with other nodes coming into our downtown space from even the rural areas.” Though Springfield was not selected as a primary site during the initial round of federal Pilot City designations, the project remains very much alive. Hanna reveals that the airport’s eVTOL OEM partner was selected by a subcommittee that includes SPI as a test site. “There is a little bit of hope for us to actually engage in this endeavor sooner than later,” he reports. “We are currently engaged with a vertiport operator looking for an OEM to fly routes.” Another group is considering a St. Louis route, generally a 90-minute drive from Springfield, which is a “sweet spot” for some Advanced Air Mobility aircraft. The Solar Foundation Electric planes are impossible to integrate without a sustainable charging method, and SPI has been working to become a “power plant” for more than a decade. The journey began as a quest for non-aeronautical revenue, the silver bullet every airport seeks to offset operational costs. “In the Midwest, we get decent rent for [growing] corn and beans,” Hanna says. “But the thought at the time was: Could we give up our agricultural property and make five times that amount? It was a nice proposition.” The road to sustainability was not easy, mainly because SPI is served by a municipal power company—City Water, Light & Power—rather than an investor- owned utility. Developers consequently struggled to find a way to “plug and play” into the municipal grid. The airport considered many different angles, including de-annexing property and boring under a road to tap into other utilities, but invariably ran into roadblocks. As a result, SPI decided to forge ahead for itself. The result is a pioneering solar energy production farm spanning nearly 12 acres on the north side of the airport. The first phase was a 2.88 MW solar array that powers the airport’s public safety and airfield operations center, the FAA Flight Standards District Office and StandardAero, a major airport tenant. The second phase was an “aggregated net metering program”—reportedly the first for any airport in Illinois. Rather than cluttering the airfield with dozens of micro-grids and utility interconnections, SPI built one large 1.58 MW solar array with a single feed into the grid, adjacent to the original 2.88 MW array. Under Illinois legislation, the airport credits the power “punched into the grid” against remote meters located throughout the airfield. “Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport is nearly 100% electrified with renewable power as of last week,” Hanna announced in mid-April. This infrastructure is a major draw for tenants like a large maintenance, repair and overhaul facility. By sourcing nearly 100% of its energy from renewable
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