Aviation trade groups have their ire up with a USA Today story entitled “Feds keep little-used airports in business” and a NBC “Today” show companion story that ran on MSNBC cable news.
The trade groups call the story “biased and distorted,” “devoid of journalistic balance” and one that took “a gratuitous and uninformed slap at general aviation.”
The story focuses on spending at general aviation airports, saying that airline ticket tax income fund airports around the country, some of which are little used. In an accounting, USA said it found that Congress has directed $15 billion over 28 years to general aviation airports, “which typically are tucked on country roads and industrial byways.”
What the story doesn’t point out, however, is that general aviation operators contribute to the same trust fund through fuel taxes or that the also fund also pays for the air traffic control system, a system that primarily benefits the airlines, said the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Community airports serve a vital role for towns with little or no airline service, said the National Business Aviation Association. They provide lifelines for small to midsize businesses, schools, universities and other organizations. They stimulate economic development and are essential for air transportation for the postal service, firefighting, disaster relief, medical evacuations, law enforcement, homeland security, patient and organ transports and other services.
“Congress has long recognized that the upkeep of a national system of airports is an established national priority,” NBAA president and CEO Ed Bolen said in a letter to the editor of USA Today.
AOPA also says that :
In 2007, a fairly typical year for Airport Improvement Program funding:
* The FAA distributed $3.34 billion in funds to 2,610 airports.
* Of that, 341 primary airports — airports with more than 100,000 boardings each year — received $2.1 billion of the funds. That’s an average of $6.17 million per airport.
* Overall, the 389 airline airports shared $2.2 billion, averaging $5.5 million per airport. By comparison, 1,121 general aviation that year shared $832 million, averaging $742,000 each.
* Another $310 million was distributed through state block grant programs.
4 Comments
What is the source of the tax dollars? How much comes from ticket taxes and how much comes from fuel taxes?
Here is the real story on who pays taxes. The information is taken from FAA.gov/about/budget > Airport Trust Fund. The airline ticket tax is 7.5% of the ticket cost plus $3.40 per segment. The fuel tax for 100LL Avgas is 0.193 per gallon. A ticket on AirTran to Atlanta is $199. (0.075 x 199) + 3.40 = $18.32. It is 650 NM to Atlanta and my Beech Baron cruises 180 kts while burning 30 GPH. 650 / 180 = 3.6 hours. 3.6 x 30 = 108 gallons. 108 x .193 = $20.84. Not only did I pay my fair share of the taxes, I paid more in contributions to the airport fund than you did with your AirTran ticket. I want to stop subsidizing your air carrier airport and I want you to keep your hands off my GA airport.
Flight training, is at it’s lowest point in 44 years of such record keeping. Marketing efforts are practically non-existent at small aviation businesses that serve and would be the promoters of the value of general aviation to local communities. AOPA’s extraordinary efforts and industry partnerships, like GA Team 2000 (Be A Pilot.com) in the late ’90s fizzled out as the economy turned south. Unless flight training becomes more attractive a business and more affordable for students, and soon, we can predict the end of public access to light general aviation in our lifetime. Pilots and planes are already old. An affordable Cessna’s 162 Skycatcher with new enticing learn-to-fly promotions cannot come soon enough. http://stevewilsonblog.com/2009/09/17/the-162-cant-get-here-soon-enough.aspx
The calculation by Buswriter is per passenger but ignores that there are somewhere between 50 to 100 people on that commercial plane to Atlanta compared to the one or two in a Baron. The total contributions (which is what matters) from aviation fuel are infinitesimally small compared to the billions paid by commercial air passengers.