When Eric Stark finally bought an 80-year-old Piper Cub in May 2025, the Butler University music professor expected to spend his weekends in the air, not circling paperwork. He says it took three years of applications just to snag a single hangar slot near Indianapolis, a story many Indiana pilots can recite by heart. Airports have grabbed federal grants for shiny, visible upgrades, but long hangar waitlists are keeping plenty of planes parked on the sidelines.
Big numbers, small spaces
General aviation is hardly a niche hobby. A national study found it supported roughly $339.2 billion in U.S. economic output in 2023. According to reporting by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, that activity translated into about $7.7 billion in economic impact for Indiana, and the state’s 68 general-aviation airports employed roughly 26,000 people in 2023.
Hangars are the missing link
Despite those big numbers, the real choke point is basic storage. A 2023 survey found that 71% of general-aviation airports report having too few individual hangars, and 55% of airport managers say they have land to build more but lack the money, according to AOPA. Costs are only intensifying the squeeze. “The cost of new hangar development today is more than double what it was 20 years ago,” industry leaders told Aviation Week. For many smaller fields, that math turns into waitlists that stretch into years instead of months.
Federal cash fixes terminals, not hangars
Some Indiana projects have managed to move ahead anyway. Purdue’s new terminal work helped restart service to Chicago and expand local connectivity, according to Purdue University. But funding rules and grant priorities tend to reward terminals and runways before basic storage. As Aviation Week notes, hangars have been ranked near the bottom of eligible airport funding projects, leaving airports to cover the costs themselves or court private developers if they want to add space.
Lawmakers call for answers
The funding gap has drawn scrutiny in Washington. Rep. André Carson says he pressed the FAA for details after being told some infrastructure funds were withheld. “I requested a full list of the grant cuts and the rationale,” he told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. State officials told the same outlet that about $175 million in infrastructure money had been awarded to Indiana airports through 2026, but only roughly $117 million of that had actually been put to use so far.
Local fixes and private solutions
With federal dollars slow to solve the problem, experts lean on local creativity. AOPA urges airports to offer long-term land-lease options so private developers can build hangars and to enforce hangar-use rules so the limited space serves aircraft instead of boats or RVs. Private hangar condos and ground-lease developments are increasingly common tools for expanding capacity without forcing airports to shoulder the full construction risk. If policymakers shift grant priorities so hangars rank higher, the pressure on waitlists could ease, but that would require changes at the legislative or FAA level.
For pilots like Stark, the shortage is not an abstract policy problem. Landing a hangar can decide whether a person buys a plane or shelves the dream entirely. Airport managers and lawmakers say they will keep pushing for funding and policy changes, because without extra hangar capacity the state’s growing fleet will have nowhere to land, literally and economically.
