US industry mobilises grassroots to fight funding plans

The US National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) have set up a system to help individual members lobby their local Congressional representatives to oppose a change in the way the US aviation infrastructure is financed. The change from tax-based funding to a user-fee system would take place on 30 September 2007, when the mandate for a congressionally voted budget for the Federal Aviation Administration - including air traffic management (ATM) and airports infrastructure - runs out.

The general aviation lobby - the NBAA and AOPA together with 10 other associations including the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) - claim that most of the money for airports and ATM is invested in 35 major US hub airports that GA hardly uses, and the airways that link them. NBAA president and chief executive Ed Bolen, speaking at a special session on user fees at the NBAA convention in Orlando, Florida, said that "hubbing imposes cost on the system". He alleges it is fundamentally inefficient, and does not serve GA operators flying point-to-point between minor airfields. Any call by the airlines for GA to fund the existing structure, argues Bolen, is a call for subsidy by the carriers of a system that was designed with their needs in mind.

GAMA president and chief executive Peter Bunce says there is a "campaign of disinformation on Capitol Hill" by the airlines about business aviation in general, but particularly aimed at very light jets (VLJ) and the fear they will be so numerous as to dominate the skies. This is not the case, he insists, pointing out that the FAA administrator Marion Blakey acknowledges that most of the VLJs will use uncongested airspace and airports and - particularly in air-taxi service - will use flight levels between 25,000ft (7,620m) and 30,000ft that turboprop GA aircraft currently use, not the levels the airlines do.

Where funding is sourced

US Federal Aviation Administration funding comes from a budget voted by Congress from a trust fund into which all domestic operators pay fuel taxes. Airlines and air taxi/GA charter operators remit ticket and departure taxes per passenger. But GA aircraft are charged 5.1¢/litre (19.4¢/USgal) in fuel taxes on avgas, and 5.8¢/litre on Jet A, whereas airlines pay only 1.1¢/litre on domestic routes. Bolen says GA pays its way, and user fees will be skewed in airlines' favour and costly to collect. 




Source: Flight International

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