US general aviation trade organisations urged a congressional subcommittee last week to reject calls for a user fee-based funding mechanism for air traffic operations, writes Kate Sarsfield.
Under a plan announced in February, the Federal Aviation Administration would begin collecting user fees in 2009 from as-yet undefined commercial operations to fund this system.
Ed Bolen, president of the National Business Aviation Association, says: "America's air transportation system and the small- to mid-size businesses in small towns and rural areas that depend on [general aviation] would be the losers if a user fee plan becomes law."
Bolen argues the FAA plan fulfils a long-standing lobbying campaign by the airlines to shift airline costs on to GA in the form of onerous new taxes and user fees. This airlines-backed proposal, he says, is completely at odds with the FAA's modernisation agenda.
"If the bill is a modernisation plan, why not outline the technologies, timelines or costs of the next phase of modernisation envisaged for the air transportation system?" Bolen says. "The FAA talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk."
Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, says: "The FAA has spent the last two years manufacturing a funding crisis to justify a switch from a tried-and-true funding mechanism to a system of air traffic control user fees and huge increases in taxes on GA that provides less money and has proven detrimental to GA wherever in the world it has been implemented." He cites Australia as an example.
"Reject the calls for user fees," Boyer says, "then we can get on with the productive, meaningful discussion on how to strengthen the nation's airports and modernise air traffic control."
Source: Flight International
