Delegation won fight on aviation fees

cessnaThe Senate went into this week’s debate on revamping the air traffic control system having negotiated away the worrisome prospect of fees on general aviation’s airport use. Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback and Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, deserve praise for fighting hard against that funding method, which would have hurt Wichita’s planemakers by driving up the costs of owning and flying their products. Both the Senate proposal being debated and the House version, passed last year, would fund the new Global Positioning System for tracking air traffic through an increase in the tax on jet fuel used by noncommercial aircraft. Among the other pluses in the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill: a three-hour limit on the amount of time airliners can hold passengers captive on a runway.

2 Comments

  1. MaxGrobnik
    Posted April 30, 2008 at 10:15 am | Permalink

    Fine, a law that says passengers won’t be locked in a plane on the ground for more then 3 hours.

    Anyone considered how this law will be enforced or what the penalty will be for breaking this law?
    This is another example of feel-good legislation, making the voters THINK Government is actually doing something.

    Anyone considered the impact on safety? Will flights be rushed to take-off in bad weather and/or heavy traffic to beat the 3-hour deadline?

    Or will the airlines even care, since this bullsh*t law has no teeth of 1)Enforcement or 2)Penalties for breaking the law.

    Pass another useless law. Nothing will change. (Except there will be some words on a piece of paper, and many voters will be fooled that Government has solved a problem.)

  2. MaxGrobnik
    Posted April 30, 2008 at 10:17 am | Permalink

    The Devil is always in the Details.

    Here’s the Bill with the Details – and the Devil:

    http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:s1300rs.txt.pdf